Shrinky Dinks Jewelry a Fun DIY Craft

Shrinky Dinks Jewelry will take you back to one of your childhood favorite crafts. Make your own Shrinky Dinks easily. Kids love them, and I made this heart wrap bracelet for Valentines for my friend Sarah out of a shrinky dink. The best thing is you can make anything you want, and the ideas are endless.

A few weeks ago I made Star Wars Shrinky Dinks Earrings using a #6 recycled plastic container, but you can order printable shrink film from Amazon which is what I used to make this bracelet. The printable plastic comes in clear or white.

What you will need to make Shrink Dinks Jewelry

Shrinky Dinks Plastic Sheets or a #6 recycled plastic container
Hole Punch
Ink Jet Printer or permanent marker
2 feet of 1/4″ ribbon

How to Make Shrinky Dinks Jewelry

First, cut your plastic 3 times the size you want your shrunken design to be. I measured my wrist and made my heart 3 inches tall. I used my Cricut craft machine with the deep cut blade to cut mine, but a pair of scissors works just as well.

Once you have your cut out punch holes with a regular paper hole, punch on each end of the heart.

Next, using a permanent marker color the shrinky dink plastic any way you want. When using a permanent marker on the Amazon sheets you will see the lines from the marker but if you use #6 recycled plastic you will not. You can see in my final bracelet the variation, but I liked that about it. If you use the printable film through any ink jet printer, you will not have the variation, so it's really customizable to your taste.

Next, put your shrinky dinks jewelry in a 350-degree oven on some tinfoil or wax paper. Do not put the plastic straight on a cookie sheet or it will stick to it and ruin the pan. It takes seconds to shrink. You will see it curl up and then it will flatten back out once it's flattened it's ready to remove from the oven.

I carefully pulled out the foil and laid it across a rolling pin and pressed on the ends to give it a slight curve to better fit her wrist. You have to do this immediately after you pull it out of the oven because it hardens quickly. Be careful it will be hot, but for me personally it was not too hot to handle lightly.

Let it cool for about 10 minutes then string any 1/4″ ribbon through the holes. Because we are using ribbon, you can make this completely versatile by changing out the ribbon to fit any outfit.

Now just wrap your ribbon around your wrist, tie, and tuck. Now you've got this awesome bracelet for Valentines! These would be lots of fun to make with friends or for a Valentine's party as well.