SPC & Netflix: Classic Shrinky Dink Craft Dresses Up a Picture Frame

I don’t recall doing a lot of crafts when I was a kid, maybe it was my late 70s upbring­ing. Instead we did a lot of unsu­per­vised play­ing out­side until dusk. I remem­ber the time my brother jammed me into the old milk crate my par­ents had kick­ing around in the garage and then left me there for the after­noon. Oh, those were the days. How­ever, the one thing I do remem­ber doing was Shrinky Dinks. Do you remem­ber those? I sure do because I loved them. I’m not sure what I did with them when they were com­pleted but I can so vividly remem­ber watch­ing them shrink, flip and flop in the oven as they trans­formed into my pre­cious piece of art.

On a visit to my par­ents in the States a few years ago, Scar­lett was given a belated gift for some hol­i­day that included a box of Shrinky Dinks. I was so thrilled because A) I needed a craft to keep the child from bounc­ing off the walls and B) I needed a craft to keep me, holed up in the house one win­tery after­noon with a preschooler, from bounc­ing off the walls. Besides, I hadn’t seen Shrinky Dinks in years and was pretty excited to share their mag­i­cal dance in the oven with my daughter.

Like every­thing nowa­days, Shrinky Dinks are way bet­ter. They come with all sorts of acces­sories to help turn this oven-baked art into jew­ellery, back­pack tags and key chains. How­ever, we decided that we had our own craft in mind. Using our Shrinky Dink cre­ations and some errant beads from a pre­vi­ous craft project, we decided dec­o­rate a frame. A frame with a spe­cial pic­ture is craft we like to cre­ate often. We always have so many pic­tures on the go and I think it’s nice that Scar­lett likes to have pho­tos of friends and fam­ily in her room. It’s such a lovely way for her to feel close to our out of town rel­a­tives and friends. They also make great gifts. Our Shrinky Dink cre­ations began a few years ago, and to this day Scar­lett likes to include a few Shrinky Dinks in her frame projects. They have so much per­son­al­ity and you can never get tired of watch­ing them bake-up. I guess, when it comes to crafts, it really is like mother, like daughter.

What You Need

A Shrinky Dink Kit (there are so many themed kits to choose from)
A plain pic­ture frame
Craft Glue
Beads, feather, shells, or any­thing other small craft item that fits into your “theme”

What You Do

Fol­low the pack­age direc­tions to cre­ate your Shrinky Dinks.

Clean and dry the sur­face of your pic­ture frame to prep it for glueing.

Orga­nize all your addi­tional adorn­ments for decoration.

Glue your Shrinky Dinks and other items on to the frame.

Allow the frame to thor­oughly dry using your craft glue’s guide­lines for dry­ing times.