Shrinky Dinks Ornaments

I remember making Shrinky Dinks as a kid, so I love to make them with my children.  It is so much fun to watch them shrink to little trinkets in the oven. 

Did you know that you can buy plain sheets of Shrinky Dinks plastic to make your own designs?  This is our second year using the plain sheets to make ornaments for our Christmas tree.  They are super easy to make and definitely one of a kind!

First, I cut an 8"x10" sheet of Shrinky Dinks plastic in half and gave one half to C and the other half to R.  They used colored pencils to create whatever they wanted on the rough side of the plastic.  Here are the designs they drew before we put them in the oven:

C drew the winter scene with the snowman and candy canes.  R said that her drawing is a vacuum cleaner with the night sky above!!!!  I'm not sure what a vacuum has to do with Christmas, but I told them they could draw whatever they wanted and she did!  I actually have R's sideways in this photo; you can see it the right way further down in this post.

Next, I punched a hole at the top of each sheet of plastic.  This is important because without the hole, they can't be hung on the tree! 

Then, I placed the sheets on a cookie sheet covered with tinfoil and put the sheet in a preheated 325 degrees oven for 1-5 minutes (ours took 4 minutes but the time depends on the size of the Shrinky Dinks creation and the thickness of your cookie sheet), watching them the whole time. 

The end result is two more very cool homemade ornaments for our Christmas tree!

Shrinky Dink Ornaments

Shrinky Dinks are so much fun. You may remember when C made shrinky dinks backpack bling. We had so much fun in the past with shrinky dinks, so I was very excited when I had the idea to make Christmas ornaments with shrinky dinks paper.

I cut one 8x10 piece of shrinky dinks paper in half and gave C and R each a piece to decorate. Before they began drawing, I asked them which way they were going to draw their pictures so I could punch a hole in the top. They used colored pencils to draw Christmas pictures.

C's picture is on the left and it is an elf surrounded by some of the toys he made for Christmas. I love the little toy Wolverine up on the top shelf.



R's picture is Santa's sleigh filled with presents. She was so excited to do this.

Here they are when they came out of the oven:

We really loved this activity, and I love that C's and R's art can be preserved in the form of Christmas ornaments!

Shrinky Dinks - Backpack Bling

Do you have memories of Shrinky Dinks from your childhood? I remember coloring Smurfs Shrinky Dinks at my kitchen table and then waiting for them to shrink in the oven. My husband actually mentioned Shrinky Dinks after I told him about the process to make the "stained glass" butterflies. I hadn't thought about them in years and I was excited to try them with C and R. I was really hoping to find some superhero Shrinky Dinks, but I had no luck. After searching a bit, I found a Shrinky Dinks activity kit made by Alex. C and R were both happy with the selection of shapes and creatures to color and shrink.


The directions recommend using a toaster oven (you can use a conventional oven though) and I found this so easy because there is no time waiting for the oven to preheat. It only took a few minutes for them to shrink and cool so there is no waiting there either.


R enjoyed watching them shrink, and she liked the final products but she was not interested in coloring the Shrinky Dinks. This did not surprise me at all. C enjoyed the whole process.


The kit we purchased came with key chains so we actually decorated C's new backpack with two of his Shrinky Dink creations.

All of a sudden, the child who has been telling me that he does not want to go to Kindergarten was jumping up and down asking me when he can go to school with his Shrinky Dinks. If I knew it was that easy, I would have done this long ago. I hope the joy lasts because we still have more than a week before school starts!