Floral Shrink Plastic Necklace

In this short set of instructions, I will show you how to make and design your very own pendant - durable and simple to craft! From designing your own pattern, to placing the final product in the oven, I will be there to help you every step of the way, writing these instuctions as simply and clealy as possible.

In order to craft this necklace, one will need the following:

• paper,
• pencil,
• markers,
• shrink plastic,
• string/chain,
• hole punch,
• scisssors,
• and an oven.

The first step is to create a design and draw it on plain paper, which will then be used as the basic template for tracing. The important step here is to read the instructions of your particular shrink plastic to ensure it shrinks at your desired size. It can be useful to test the plastic first before one finalizes the pattern. One can find inspiration from sites - such as Pinterest - however, I found mine by looking at the flowers grown in my garden.

After having drawn your idea onto plain paper, gather your shrink plastic and markers to trace your design before colouring it. To increase accuracy, one can use paperclips - as I have done - to stop the template from moving. Next, simply take your marker ( I have chosen a black copic marker as an outline ) and copy your pattern from the paper to the plastic.

For this next step, one will need their traced image and markers (of varied colours) to ink in the sketch. Pick the colours desired and begin to ink the drawing - planning out where each pigment will go. Testing these colours beforehand is useful, as they shall go darker when cooked and one can make sure they do not smear. For my necklace, I did a colour swatch to test how the colours would look in the outcome of the design.

Take your now coloured project and cut it out with a pair of scissors - making sure there are no sharp edges. Now puncture 2 holes in the pattern with a hole punch. One must do this before cooking because it would be too think to puncture a hole afterward and the holes must shrink.

To stop the design sticking to itself, I sandwiched it between 2 sheets of baking paper - weighed down, which resisted it curling. The black & white image I have shown below depicts what happens when the plastic curls and sticks to itself. A very important step in the crafting of your necklace, is making sure the time and temperature is as the instructions state on your shrink plastic. For my shirnk plastic, I set the temperature to 150° and put it in for 5 minutes, waiting for the pattern to curl.

Once taken out of the oven, immediately press it down to flatten it as much as possible. Thread the string through the holes, leaving enough to tie it in a knot and fit it around the neck. Well done! That is all you need to do to make your very own floral necklace.