What to do with Shrinky Dinks

Better late than never!

Here's the post that shows what I made for the exchange BoomerKnows Charm for swap

As promised, here's the photos of the charms I received from the "Christmas In July 2011 shrink plastic charm swap."   I don't have permission to post other people's names and information but I can post the beautiful charms I received.  There were 26 people involved in this swap.

There were 2 charms that didn't have identifying information the mittens in the upper right corner in the picture above, and the red & green stocking in the left of centre in the picture below. One tag was missing a charm so a mini mystery for me!

 I'm so glad I joined in and did it.  If you've never tried a swap, 

its worth the work to get so many lovely returns in the mail!

A good friend mentioned how cute the finished shrink plastic charms look but she also asked, what do we do with them?  That got me to thinking and while I was doing my weekly craft blog surfing I jotted down a decent list.  I noticed that several ideas are transferrable to polymer clay (FIMO) .  It just goes to show, ideas are everywhere.  Here is my list, in no particular order:

pet tags

wine charms

fridge magnets

key ring charm or identifier

ring

cell phone charm

knitting or crochet stitch marker

charm bracelet

necklace pendant

earrings

inspiration word reminder charm

zipper pull

doll with moveable limbs

sun catcher

bookmark charm

hair accent

mini Christmas tree ornaments

card accent

handmade book spine adornment

scrapbook accents

miniature house accents

tea light adornment

custom buttons

I have no idea how long wearing decorated shrink plastic would be if used for clothing accents.  

If anyone knows about shrink plastic survival rates for regular everyday machine wash/dry use 

I'd love to hear from you!

While I was surfing I found other things people did to manipulate shrink plastic:

Sand it before applying chalk or pencil crayons

ink

markers

stamps

etching

layer them

emboss while still warm

twist and distort them

print them through home printer 

(not for a lazer printer, the heated plastic will ruin the machine)