Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Make Your Own Shrinky Dinks

I am in a bit of a crafty rut right now. The truth is, my apartment is pretty clean from all our company and I am hesitant to get messy creative. So this is actually a repeat craft from my teaching blog. This project was a hit with my third and fourth graders and frankly, my friends too. Who isn't a bit nostalgic about Shrinky Dinks?
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Recycled Plastic Shrinky Dinks
Supplies:
Toaster Oven
tongs
tin foil
Sharpie markers
spatula
No. 6 or 7 recycled plastic
scissors (Fiskers kids scissors worked great)
hole punch


1. Start with plastic that has either a 6 or 7 in the recycle triangle. Salad bar containers and bakery goods often come in this kind of plastic. We used the lids from salad containers.

2. We used Sharpies, but any permanent marker would work.
Recycled Shrink Art
We traced some of our favorite book characters with Sharpies, but you can draw anything!

Shrink Art in the Oven
3. After drawing, cut out the design and use a hole punch to make a hole. Then place your design on some tin foil. We cooked ours in the toaster oven. There are some fumes, so you may want to consider opening a window or taking the toaster oven outside.

4. Bake the shrinky dink for about 2 minutes at 200 degrees. It's fun to watch! It will curl and look all messed up, but then like magic it will uncurl too. When it's flat again, it's done!

5. Caution! They will be very hot at first! Have an adult use the spatula or tongs to remove the shrinky dink from the foil! Let cool for a few minutes before letting the kiddies touch them.

After: finished shrink art

A Few Amulets

My students sewed their charms on these "Success Bags" where they collected mementos from the school year.

More Trash to Treasure at Reinvented!




5 comments:

Amie Kirk said...

How fun!! Yeah, there is just something about Shrinky Dinks. They are neat no matter how old you are ;o)!
I would love for you to check out my new crafting blog http://lafftycrafty.blogspot.com/

sara said...

OK, I LOVE this idea! Thanks for sharing!

Tommie said...

OMG I love your blog! Such cute style and I have such a thing for trash to treasure! I think I am going to have to put you in my FF file to feature your site next on ablogtobehold.blogspot.com!

Jill said...

My daughter reallly wanted to do something like this for her science fair project...but now I (a classroom teacher) have a great instructional extension, too! Thanks for the idea of carrying over the science part into language arts/book characters! Too fun!

KatrinkaJane said...

Can you leave them on the foil to cool, or is there some reason to remove them immediately?