How to Make Shrinky Dink Earrings

See how fun shrinky dinks are by making these earrings for whatever theme or occasion.

• clear shrink plastic
• black sharpie
• chalk stamp ink
• jump rings
• earring hooks
• heat gun (optional)
• gloss glaze

Find some Halloween vector graphics you want your earrings to look like online. Vector graphics have clear-cut lines and are perfect for this type of project.

I just did an image search of "Halloween graphics" in google, and I got the results I wanted.

Copy the graphics into a program that lets you resize them for printing. This is something that Word can do.

I used an iPad app called good notes. It's my absolute favorite notebook app.

As you can see in the image above, you want the graphics to print out at around 3 inches or roughly twice the size you want your earrings to be. Shrink plastic reduces the size by half.

Print out the images.

The shrink plastic will be smooth when you take it out of the package. But a lot of coloring methods won't stick to smooth plastic. So you'll need to use some sandpaper to make one side rough.

Place your scratched shrink plastic over your printed graphics with the sanded side up.

Trace the lines of your graphic with a black sharpie.

I used a bigger sharpie to fill in the black spaces.

Cut out your image to make it easier to color, leaving a little room outside the lines

But make sure you leave a bump at the top big enough for a standard hole punch to punch a hole.

Punch a hole in the space given.

Use chalk stamp ink and an eyeshadow applicator to color your graphic.

You can also use colored pencils if you don't have chalk ink.

I have several colors of chalk ink, so I tried to do some blending of the colors to make them look like the original graphics.

Now the fun part.

Use a heat gun or your oven to shrink the plastic. If using your oven, follow the heating instructions on the shrink plastic.

It's a little easier to use your oven, plus the plastic comes out more uniform. But heat guns can also do the job.

I used my heat gun because I love to watch the plastic shrink. I also used a grate on top, hoping it would keep the plastic from blowing around too much. It didn't work all that well.

Also, when you use a heat gun, have a spatula ready to press the plastic if it curls in the corners.

Here are my two sets of earrings after heating.

Coat the inked sides with a gloss glaze. Mod Podge should work fine as long as you don't get them wet.

Attach a jump ring and earring hook to the hole you punched.

Now you have some custom earrings that everyone will love.