Shrink plastic is the truly magical crafting ingredient that everyone needs to have a play with at some point in their crafting adventure. Warning – this craft is highly addictive! Here, Penelope Quinn shows you how you can use shrink plastic to create your own DIY jewellery – but there are so many other applications you can use it for too. Get creative to transform your own look, or even use it to craft a personalised gift… watching your designs shrink is the best part!
You Will Need:
DIY Shrink Plastic Jewellery Tutorial:
Step 1:
First, draw your design out onto your shrink plastic, making sure that you draw on the rough side. You can use templates or go freehand; let your imagination go wild! Be aware that colours do come out darker once you’ve shrunk the plastic. The plastic will shrink to around a quarter of it’s size, so keep this in mind. This cupcake was 15cm square.
Step 2:
Use your whole punch to make a hole in the top – this is where your charm will hang. Carefully cut out around your design, leaving a 0.5cm gap around the outside of your design.
Step 3:
Now the fun bit! Hold your design down with a pen knife or scissors, and apply heat from the heat gun to your design.
It will start to shrivel and move around – it will fold in on itself, but don’t worry, keep applying heat until it starts to lie flat.
Once it’s completely shrunk and lying flat, turn off your heat gun, and leave a few minutes until it’s set.
Step 4:
To complete your project and turn your DIY shrink plastic designs into jewellery, use small link connectors to attach to a chain as charms, earrings, or a key chain!
Step 5:
Now you just need to team your eye-catching new jewellery with your favourite outfit, and head out to show off your handmade look!
Looking for more jewellery-making inspiration? Check out the rest of our projects, ideas and tutorials right here!
As our content marketing executive in charge of the Create and Craft blog, Lisa loves nothing more than writing about all things craft. ‘When I’m not at work, you’ll find me attempting a wonky crochet project, playing with watercolours or trying my hand at the latest awesome craft tutorial to cross my desk!’
