My excitement swelled as the plastic shrank in the oven

Finally! The package is here! All the way from America, thanks to my friend who kindly helped me to buy it along with all his other shipment.

THIS IS IT. Well, ok, not the real Shrinky Dink, but it's technically the same thing!

Ok, before I start talking about my very exciting first experience with shrink plastic, I need to complain a little. You see, I have known shrink plastic for a long long time. But unfortunately, it seems quite difficult to find shrink plastics in Singapore. I've tried looking for it in Spotlight and other lesser-known craft shops that I have chance upon, but to no avail.

Then one day, during my one-day bazaar stall stint at a particular, I saw a stall making personalised keychains for sale. And I saw an oven. And I was like, "OH MY GOD ARE THOSE SHRINKY DINKS!?!??!!?"

It's the stall set up by my friend's CCA group who was also in charge of the entire bazaar/event thingy. I asked them where did they get those shrink plastics and they answered, half jokingly, "I'm sorry but this is the secret of our business. But we will tell you if you buy a keychain from us."

Stupid hard sell tactic. My friend indeed bought a keychain from them. She wanted to support her own CCA anyway. So after she has paid the money, I asked them again, "so where did you guys get the shrink plastic?"

To my horror and disgust, they all ignored me and still wasn't very willing to disclose the information. The only girl who answered me wasn't very helpful, "erm... I can't really remember... I think it was in Bras Basah... but I am not sure."

WHAT THE HELL. It's such a silly and childish thing to do. I was totally disgusted by these university students. It's almost like conning people into buying their things. What idiots. I can still remember the incident to this day, so you know how angry I was about it. Friggin' stupid.

***

Ok and now back to the happier stuff. My very first shrink plastic project! I've seen this project via the Craftzine blog a while back and it has been on my mind ever since. I kept telling myself, "one day when I get my shrink plastic, I will definitely be making this!!!"

And that day finally did come. *tear

So!

This is the way it shrinks!!! :):):)



That was the very first charm that I shrunk! I used my hole puncher for paper to punch a big hole in the plastic. It shrunk to be size that will be just right for the rings that will be used to hang them on a bracelet!

Then comes the colouring. I tried using Faber Castell Connecter pens for colouring but they didn't work. (T_T)

I tried so many other coloured markers that was lying around in my room and they didn't stain the plastic well enough too. And finally, just when I thought all hope was lost (and that I had to spend money to buy some permanent marker recommended by the manufacturer), I tried my Staedtler colour pencil. And it worked!

It looked suspicious in the beginning because it only leaves a very faint mark on the plastic and I wasn't sure if it would give a desirable effect after baking. Nevertheless, I gave it a shot. And Viola! It worked! :) The colour became more saturated after baking and shrinking! (n_n)

And these are my Polyshrink charms! <3

There seems to be a bug with Blogger. This picture just cannot be oriented the right way. And it's just for THIS picture. (-_-)

P.S.: I drew my own '7' for the charm, it was not in the pattern given by Sublime Stitching.