Honey, I Shrunk The Hearts

Guess what I made today?

Shrinky Dink pins!!



I have been wanting to do this ever since I saw the tutorial on Wee Wonderfuls some time ago.

And now, I want to make MORE!

Last night I couldn't sleep and I knew I was running out of time to stitch an embroidery for the Make It Pink Challenge at Craft Styish so I decided to make something else. A heart-shaped bottom of a Sweetart container and a few pink felt scraps were my inspiration for a pincushion, which gave me a great excuse to also make some Shrinky Dink pins.



I'm not at all happy with my sloppy blanket stitching or that weird seam at the bottom of the heart (um, hello?) but it was so fun to make the Shrinky Dinks, I don't care how the pincushion turned out.

I have two kinds of shrinkable plastic: the original Shrinky Dinks for an ink jet printer (I just colored mine with Sharpies and some cheapie no-name markers that I got a few years ago at Pic n Save, aka Big Lots) and some called Alene's Shrink-It, which I will try next time.

Hillary's instructions for making the pins are perfect. I took her suggestion and made my pre-shrinkage hearts about 3/4" wide. The directions on the package said to put the Shrinky Dinks in the oven for 3-5 minutes, but I swear, after just twenty seconds, mine shrunk right up. I was watching through the oven door and it was so cool to see them get so small in just seconds. Did they work this quickly when I was a kid? I really don't remember them shrinking so fast.

You might be wondering why one heart pin is black. Well, look what I found in my container of markers.



Yep, that's the pen that came with Shrinky Dinks back in the late 1970's. Would you believe it still works?!