Craft Gossip

Independent craft blog since 2007

Shrinky Dink Anyone?

by

ribbon metalphotojojo Think back on the fun projects you might have done as a kid, before you felt the need for fancy materials and when the possibility of something shrinking in the oven was totally exciting.  I remember lots of Smurf Shrinky Dink projects.  Well now it doesn’t need to be just for kids.

Check out these instructions for inexpensive ribbon metals on instructables.com

Or these “Doodle Charms”  with instructions on homemade shrinky dink. They come out looking like stained glass

Or even plastic rings as posted here on PlanetJune

doodle charmsAnd last, though I am sure you can find tons more projects, check out Photojojo.com for a tutorial on photo necklaces, earrings etc using shrinking plastic.  I love this project!

Read These Next

Have you read?

Cross Stitch Cards for All Occasions

I have never stitched a greeting card, but I kind of like the idea of it. It’s a card and a gift all in one, and hopefully one the recipient will hang onto for years to come. 

This collection of easy and colorful greeting card cross stitch patterns from Susan Bates (via Gathered) are a great place to start if you want to stitch your own greeting cards. 

These text-based designs cover a lot of card-sending events, such as:

  • get well soon
  • happy birthday
  • thank you
  • thinking of you
  • congratulations
  • anniversary
  • new home
  • good luck

The lettering is done in gradients and there are other details like hearts and stars, a house key and a gift, depending on the text. There are full cross stitches and back stitch on all of the cards, and they use 15 colors for the cross stitching and six for the back stitching (and just two colors are used for both, so it’s 19 colors total). 

The designs vary a bit in size but the biggest one is 52 by 67 stitches, which comes out to 3.75 by 4.75 inches or 9.5 by 12 cm when worked on 14 count fabric or 28 count evenweave. The text suggests beads are also used in the patterns but there’s no note of them in the key, so go wild and add some beads if you like. 

Designs are worked on a price of 6 by 8 inch/15 by 20 cm fabric and then mounted to a card with a colorful baking piece of card stock behind it. This is easy to assemble with whatever cardstock greeting cards you have on hand.

You can get the free charts as a PDF from Gathered. 

Have you ever stitched your own greeting cards? I’d love to hear about it, or let me know if these inspire you to try. 

[Photo: Susan Bates via Gathered]