Shrinky Dinks

I never played with shrinky dinks as a kid, but when I first heard about them a couple years ago, they sounded like a lot of fun.

We tried a few pieces free-hand, which was fun, but it was also really fun to miniaturize some favorite characters from books.

We used sharpie markers, and what worked best for us was to draw the outlines on the front (I’d usually trace something from a book), and then my daughter could color it in from behind. Fun fact, this is also how it used to work in animation – the animators would animate the outlines and then other workers would paint the transparencies in from behind.

In the future, I’d like to figure out how to better flatten them as they cool, and to use a hole punch to be able to make little earrings and findings for jewelry. I’ve also heard of some folks molding them into shapes like rings or flowers.