BORN IN A BALL JAR: DIY Mini Ball Jar

Shrinky Dinks are a children’s craft that have been around since the 1970s. While they are usually reserved for moms giving their kids something to do on a rainy day, with some creativity you can make custom pieces that are anything but ordinary.

Materials:

1 Shrinky Dinks come in a variety of styles, all of which have their advantages and disadvantages. The ones that I used for this project were clear, meaning that I needed to sand them. You sand so that the ink or pencil that you put on the plastic will stick and not slide right off. Sand in circular motion, or else your ink will run.

2 Shrinky Dinks will make your end product much smaller than they originally were. If you want a charm to be an inch big, make your design three inches big, and so on. Simple designs work better, with heavy lines that will be easy to trace and look nice and clean. Tape a piece of your sanded plastic to the paper.

3 Trace your design with a permanent marker. You can use fine point or a larger one, depending on how you like it. For finer details, you will want to use the fine tip, as the larger one will put a lot of black on your project.

4 Add color to your design. You can add color with colored pencils to give it a nice opaque look, or you can use colored permanent markers for something a bit darker.

5 Cut out your piece. You may want to use fine-pointed scissors for this so that you can get into all the little details of your design. If you’re going to use your piece as a charm, use a hole punch to make a hole for the jump ring.

6 Bake your piece. Follow the instructions from your packaging. Don’t worry; while baking, the plastic is going to do some weird stuff (like curling up upon itself). It’ll be OK. I knows what it’s doing. When it comes out, it’s going to be very hot, so don’t touch it right away. However, use a towel or piece of paper to press the piece down to make sure it’s flat.

7 If you made a charm, add a jump ring. You can also add extras, like other charms. The good thing about these is that you can make them into anything that you want. Look into other Shrinky Dink projects; you’ll be amazed at what can be made with these basic steps.