First of all I have to say------save your #6 plastic containers (like the clear containers from the salad bar). Save the whole container, even the textured sides and bottoms. It all works and flattens out nicely. The ridges on the sides give a nice space to color! Yes, I know it now throws a kink in your organizational advice to cut off all the sides of the plastic containers so the plastic could be stored flat. We burned up most of the afternoon making DIY shrink plastic and used every bit of my large stash of #6 containers and were left wanting more!
How to make homemade shrinky dinks (shrink plastic)
It is really an easy activity. All you need is:
- permanent markers
- regular hole punch
- #6 plastic
- oven
- cookie sheet covered with aluminum foil or parchment paper
- scissors to cut the plastic
Cut a shape out of the plastic (plastic shrinks about 1/3 of the original size). Our 2" circle became about 3/4" when shrunk.
Color one side of the shape with permanent marker. The color becomes more intense once shrunk. If you are wanting to attach your shape to something don't forget to punch a hole before placing in the oven.
Place the plastic on a thin cookie sheet (not the insulated type) covered with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Bake plastic at 350 degrees for 2- 3 minutes. Each oven is different so watch closely. You will see the plastic curl up and then it will flatten back out. It does give off some fumes so we left a window open for ventilation!
We added a jump ring to some of our shapes and strung on cording along with beads to make necklaces.
Some of the small shapes we placed on id wire rings along with some beads to make beverage markers.
Ball started as a 2" circle, finished size was about 3/4"
Tag started 3" long by 1 3/4" wide, finished size was about 1 1/4" long by just under 3/4" wide
On a larger shaped tag (starting size 4" long by 2 3/4" wide) we placed a clip so it could be a zipper pull. Punch two holes side by side to make the finished hole big enough for the clip. I think these zipper pulls would make the cutest Valentine's -attach a note that says "You pull at my heart!"
Then we really got rolling and made rings. They are just too cool. For directions on how to make professional looking rings visit Planet June. She has a wonderful tutorial. (The links for the tutorial are currently unavailable I will keep checking) Ours are a bit sloppy but we are still wearing them. It took some trial and error to find the right size. For my size I started with a strip 5" long by about 1" to 1 1/2" wide. Pull it immediately from the oven and quickly while it is still very hot wrap it around a Chap-stick tube. My son needed to make his 5 1/2 inches long and I (an adult must do this part--it is hot and you must work fast!) wrapped it around a child's chunky marker. If you make a mistake and get a miss-shaped ring or it is too long just send it back into the oven. Once it is warm it can be trimmed with scissors, it will also flatten back out and you can give it another go.
After we had used every piece of plastic my son said ---------bracelets! We could make bracelets. So we are now saving more plastic!
Notes:
- I was able to use a regular ink pad and stamp designs on the plain plastic with great results!
- Look for the #6 stamp on the bottom of the clear containers
- #6 - PS: polystyrene is used in takeout food containers. It has been found to leach styrene--a neurotoxin and possible human carcinogen--and has been banned in cities like Portland, Ore. and San Francisco. Okay so there is a downside to the craft!
- I remember my grandmother melting white Styrofoam cups in the oven enough to make them look like hats. I think she did something for Mother's Day with them!
- I did think the melting plastic left a lingering odor in my oven. Before using my oven for food I turned it on to 400 degrees and let it bake for about 20 minutes to get rid of the smell.
I love your blog, what great ideas you have! I haven’t tried recycling plastic like this yet but I have heard that you can rough up the surface with sandpaper and then use colored pencils to color the plastic as an alternative to using permanent markers. Maybe someone will try it out and see what the results are!
Thanks for all the inspiration!
Diana
Hello. I just came across your website and you have fantastic ideas! On the shrinky dink idea, I was wondering, what exactly is #6 plastic (like what items)? I am embarrassed to say that we don’t recycle. Maybe this will be the kick start we need, that and we are saving the planet!
What a fun idea. I will have to start saving my #6 plastics. I love your website. You have so many great ideas.
You could do SO many things with these. Thanks so much for sharing!
Yes.. I too want to know to tell a difference in plastics!
Thanks for the great ideas. I can’t wait to do this with my kids. I bet you could even get the grocery store to donate a couple of plastic containers every once in a while for school and church projects. We did Shrinkable plastic last year at VBS. I wish I would’ve known you could use the plastic containers. It would’ve saved a lot of money.
I love how you recycled that plastic! cant wait to try it with my boys!
Okay… this is the COOLEST thing EVER!!
Yay! I can’t wait to try it.
Was it stinky in the oven? Did you open a window to vent fumes?
Ooohhh! I feel a project coming on!
How fun!!! I will have to start saving!
So fun!!!! I’m totally going to save these containers from now on! I can’t wait to try it!
Jessica
http://www.MomShots.com
Thanks for sharing the details!
Cool Idea! I loved Shrinky Dinks when I was a kid.
I’ve been hooked on your blog for the past couple months, you have the best ideas. Thank You for taking the time to do this!
I was just telling my students about shrinky-dinks the week before we went on winter vacation. This is a fabulous idea! I am sure I can make it into a math project.
OMG! I have to go check and see if we have any #6 plastic containers in the recycling bin! Awesome idea!
wonderful! can’t wait to try it!
Oh my! I’ve *never* seen this idea before and I *love* shrinky dinks! Thank you for this idea and the instructions…
I will be linking to this! I love it!
Jules
how very neat! And I love how they go from being flat and thin to slightly chunky looking…
as for the smell and possible carcinogen- couldn’t you do this as a summer time activity and do it in a toaster oven (one dedicated to crafting) and do it outside? just a thought!
thanks for the tute- love it!!!!
Ok, you really must be the coolest mom ever. I will definitely be saving this!
We use our toaster oven and put the item on a piece of brown paper bag. I haven’t noticed a smell (maybe the odor of burned crumbs on the bottom covers it up?).
@Diana: I read that about sandpaper, too. I tried it once – it’s a royal pain, so I gave up. It might be easier with flat plastic (mine was shaped), or maybe I had the wrong grit of sandpaper. Whatever the reason, I gave up on that!
@Jennifer: plastic containers that salad comes in, grocery store muffins, Trader Joe’s Joe-Joe cookies, stuff like that. It’s more brittle than a milk container, usually clear and see-through, and often shaped or textured.
It is very very magical to watch shaped things (like the muffin cups, or the salad boxes) flatten out!
Oh, this looks SO fun…it makes me want to go buy something in #6 plastics just to do this! (I don’t normally get salad bar stuff or anything else I can think of that comes in #6 – phooey!)
Thanks so much for this!!!! Can’t wait to do this with my girls. I LOVE the idea, and the saying, to use the zipper pulls for valentines
So how many #6 containers would I need to make 32 tags/hearts? hmmm. Thanks again!!
oooohhh! what a fantastic idea! i am *so* trying this after i eat out next!
YEAH!
I have been waiting for this post !!!!!!!!!!!!Hip Hip hurray!
and BTW the link http://www.planetjune.com/blog/more-shrinky-rings/ is working now! I just had to check
Great job , love your blog
Some plastic plates are coded number 6. These come in opaque colors and make wonderful beads. for more how to’s using shrinky dink type plastic try the Lucky Squirrel web site. Lucky has great how to’s
[...] over at Skip to My Lou turned #6 plastic containers into home made Shrinky Dinks! (Brilliant job [...]
Oh my gosh! I can’t believe you’ve revived the shrinky-dink. The memories…
We used to use the Styrofoam cups to make mini flower pots. Color designs on them before you shrink them, then make shrinky flowers to go in them on pipe cleaner stems. They were party favors.
Like others have mentioned, I also have a toaster oven dedicated to crafts. Mostly for Sculpey. And I use it outside.
Can you do this with a heat gun like regular shrinky dinks, or will it take too long?
LOVE this!!
What a neat idea. Years and years ago, we used to do this with drink lids, then they changed the type of plastic and it didn’t work any more. An old idea from Pack o Fun. I’m going to try working with the containers marked #6.
This is great – #6 is the one plastic we can’t recycle in our area so I throw it away. New use!
Thank you so much for posting! I’ve been wanting to try this, but didn’t know you could use the sides or what type of plastic. I’ve got a container here that my wrap came in for lunch that I will try this out with over the weekend.
Here is the link to the ring tut from above- looks like it was trying to add this information to the end of your blog address & it was making it come up wrong.
http://www.planetjune.com/blog/shrink-plastic-ring-tutorial/
BTW- Been reading your blog for a couple of weeks now. Love it!!
Alley =o)
you can also use a crockpot to shrink them a bit more safely with kids
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/09/you-can-make-shrinky-dinks-in-crockpot.html
this is a perfect sunday project with my kids !! thank you for sharing, can’t wait to try it !!
Hi! I love your website and have been reading it for quite a while. I nominated it for an award. You can read about it here.
http://www.typepad.com/site/blogs/6a00e55219e44e883300e55219e4508833/post/6a00e55219e44e8833010536c392fd970c/edit
[...] How to make Shrinky Dinks with recycled #6 plastic [...]
[...] was originally posted at Skip To My Lou. The basic idea is to find and collect the clear salad containers you get at grocery store delis. [...]
Toxic fumes – yay!
Can’t wait to endanger my kids with styrene which is considered a possible human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the World Health Organization’s leading source for information about cancer.
Added bonus, it may disrupt hormones. Your kids will love you for that!
And, joy of joys, if you’re planning on having another kid, it my adversely affect reproduction!
Is there any other plastic that will work? I have a lot of #1 and #7? My 3 year old is excited to try this project, but am having a hard time finding the right type of plastic.
Kim
[...] was originally posted at Skip To My Lou. The basic idea is to find and collect the clear salad containers you get at grocery store delis. [...]
Awesome! I can’t wait to try that!
[...] Skip To My Lou » How to make Shrinky Dinks with recycled #6 plastic Wow! Really? [...]
I’m so excited! I came over from Kidz and just had to see this. I loved making these as a kid.
[...] had a huge black plastic catering tray (and clear lid) that were both #6 plastic, ideal for shrinking in the oven. I did a few little experiments with the clear lid (not worth posting – they warped badly!) and [...]
I experimented today with #6 plastic. The plastic I used came from packages of fresh berries (I knew I was hanging onto these containers for something).
Few tips:
Make sure plastic is clean and free of water spots as these show up in the finished product.
I attempted to use an embossing gun as I’ve had success with regular shrinky dinks but I ended up with a curled up mess. Oven worked great.
I had no fumes.
I added rub on transfers and used modgepodge as a sealer.
Absolutely great idea. I think I will try it but with my little electric oven outside. Don’t want to fumigate the family. You really do have a lot of creative ideas on your blog. I think this will be great for me to make charms….
Thank you
Coco
Recycling Class 6 plastic is polystyrene. You can buy clear or colored sheets in hobby shops or plastics dealers.
You can also do this with styrofoam which is expanded polystyrene. You can use the white meat trays, styrofoam cups and plates or sheet styrofoam from a craft store or home depot.
THe link for the rings is now working. I was able to click and see it. I saved it to my harddrive incase it ever disappears again.
Thank you SO MUCH for your tutorial on this!!!