My husband remembers Shrinky Dinks from when he was a little boy. I’d never heard of them. One year we bought Shrinky Dinks as a stocking stuffer for one of our kids. It came with strange sheets of translucent paper. You draw and color whatever you want on them. We used colored pencils. Then you cut them out and put them in the oven.
They shrink to one third the original size. You bake the artwork one by one for 1 to 3 minutes each at 325 degrees. (I ruined my first one because I had no clue what I was d
oing, but the others came out perfect. So you might want to start with one that doesn’t matter if it gets messed up.) If you put your oven light on, you will see it start to shrink. Then count for 30 seconds. Pull it out, and there it is, teeny weeny.
The kids squealed with laughter when they saw their artwork shrink through the oven door. My 10-year-old artist drew a detailed dragon, and the dragon shrank down and looked even more detailed. It was a fun “do-it-once” kind of activity.
Tags: art, crafts, Homeschooling
My little ones absolutely love shrinky dinks! You can buy pre-made kits or you can order the plain paper. I have also heard that you can shrink other plastic containers to make them. (We didn’t have much success with that one. You can find our attempt on the blog….) We have made a lot of ours into charms for jewelry or magnets for the fridge. I started ordering the paper in bulk from the supplier :).
It does indeed look like fun for the kiddos!
I remember those from my childhood too! I think they’d be fun for my children to do if I ever see them where I now live.