Making a Shrinky Dink Statement Necklace Part 1

 I've worked with Shrink film in making jewelry before but mostly I just made pendants or key chains.  My friend Kimberly made a pretty awesome leather, wood, and gold wire statement necklace the other day and it inspired me to make another statement necklace myself. (A girl can never have too many statement necklaces!)

Several different brands make "shrink film"--don't worry about finding the Shrinky Dink brand if your local craft store doesn't carry it.

I started by covering three sheets with free hand circle designs with black Micron pens.  Draw on the rough side of the film.  Sharpies work well too.   Make them big.  These will shrink over 50%!  I think I could have even made these a little bigger.   Next I colored them in with permanent markers although the markers smudged quite a bit all over my hands in the process!  Note: If you are not satisfied with your drawing skills, you can always print out a design and lay the shrink film on it and trace it.  Some people print on the sheets but I think that looks too commercial.

 

Next, carefully cut out the shapes with scissors.  Then punch holes with a normal paper punch.  If you forget you can drill them later but that is a pain when a hole punch is so much easier.  

Preheat oven to 325F.  Lay out a brown paper bag or parchment paper on a cookie sheet.  Lay the cut out and punched shapes color side up and make sure they aren't touching or they can fuse together.  Bake 1-2 minutes.  Pieces will shrink and curl up and then lay flat again.  Give them about 30 seconds after they have gone flat.  Pull out and use a piece of brown paper to flatten the ones that are still curled.  Sometimes they stay a bit curled and I don't mind with the jewelry. 

Note how much they shrink! The one on the right has not been baked!

 

I ended up with about 35 little discs.  

Next I will begin to lay them out and figure out how I want to arrange my statement necklace. 

Click here for my Making a Shrinky Dink Statement Necklace Part 2!