June Tutorial - Shrink Plastic!

Hello and Happy Friday!!!  Today I have a special Tutorial to share with you on how to use "Shrink Plastic" on your cards and scrapbook pages. Have you ever looked at someone's project and saw them use shrink plastic and wonder how they do that, well you can find out here today!!! You can choose to cut the Shrink Plastic using scissors, with your die cut machine and your dies or you can stamp and image using StazOn ink and cut out and colour using your Copic Sketch Markers.

Today you will see three completed examples, one I cut the plastic with a Spellbinder shape,  one I just stamped and cut out with scissors and the other one I stamped, cut and coloured with my Copic Sketch markers! Check it out...

To Start off you will need to have Inkssentials Shrink Plastic by Ranger....

 

And below you will see the other supplies I used for this project....

 Supplies Used:
* Inkssentials Shrink Plastic by Ranger
* StazOn Timber Brown Ink
* Memento Ink: Tuxedo Black
* Distress Ink: Broken China
* Copic Xpress It Cardstock
* Copic Sketch Markers
* Image:  High Hopes Stamps, Bob Hooked a Big One
* Sentiments:  High Hopes Stamps, Bold Happy Birthday & Keep Clam & Fish On
* Mini Blending Tool
* 1/4" Hole Punch
* Spellbinders Die - Pearl Effects
* Sizzix Waves Embossing Folder
* Paper - Bella Blvd Camp Out 12x12, Jump In The Lake
* Twine
* Button
* Red Cardstock
* White Cardstock
* Craft Heat Gun
* Scissors
* "Pokey" Tool
* Glossy Accents

Now that you have your tools you can get started!  The first example I am going to show you is how to use your Copic Sketch Markers to colour on Shrink Plastic. When choosing an image you plan to stamp and colour you first need to sand one side of the plastic with sand paper in a cross hatch pattern as shown in the photo below, can you see the scratch marks?...

 Once you have sanded one side of the plastic, turn over your piece and stamp your image on the smooth side using StazOn ink - I have chosen to stamp just the fish from the image I am using on the card you will see later. Cut out your image using scissors or a die shape.  If you wish to hang your plastic piece from twine, ribbon, etc. you will need to punch a 1/4 hole before you colour and shrink.  Once the ink has dried, turn over your piece and colour on the sanded side using your Copic Sketch Markers, see photo below of mine coloured before I shrink it, I chose to use the dotted technique to make scale line texture on the fish....

In the next example I stamped the High Hopes Stamps Sentiment "Keep Calm & Fish On" with StazOn ink and have cut out with scissors.  ....

 As you can see the image does not look perfect but just wait all will work out perfect!!!

In the last example I have cut out the plastic using my Spellbinder Pearl Effects Die then stamped on the High Hopes Stamps Bold Happy Birthday sentiment using StazOn ink....

Now that you have prepared all your pieces we are ready to "shrink" each piece to 45% of it's size!  All you need now is your "pokey" tool to hold your piece and your Craft heat gun.  Fan your heat gun over your plastic piece and once it starts to heat up it will start to shrink.  You will find that the plastic will start to curl into a ball - don't be afraid this is suppose to happen, see photo below....

 To straighten the "curl" and complete the shrinking process just turn over your piece and heat.  Your piece will take on the right look now.  Turn your piece back over to have the front forward and heat it up a tiny bit more then take your acrylic stamp block and press it on top of your plastic piece to make sure it is flat and straight.  Super easy right?? Now if you have other prepped, complete the same process and shrink =)

Below you can see some pictures of the original size vs. the 45% shrunk pieces to see how cool this really is!....

Here are all 3 pieces completed....

I decided after I took this photo that my Happy Birthday piece did not show up on the card the way I wanted it to so I decided after to take my R29 Copic Sketch Marker and just colour the back of the piece to have the red show through and make it pop off the card

 

Here is my completed card with my new "Plastic Embellishments" added....

Here is a close up of Bob to see the Copic colours used....

 Copic Colours used:
* Skin: E11, E00, E000
* Hair:  T4, T2, T0
* Hat:  E42, E41, E40, B99, B97, B95, T4, R24+ Glossy Accents
* Glasses:  R29, R24, R22, T6, T4 + Glossy Accents
* Shirt:  R29, R24, R22
* Pants:  B99, B97,B95
* Boat:  R29, R24, R22, T4,T2,T0
* Fish:  BG99, BG95, BG93, BG91
* Fishing Rod:  E42, E41, E40, T4, T2, T0
* Lure:  R29, R24, R22 + Glossy Accents
* Water:  B12, B00, B0000

Well I sure do hope that you enjoyed today's tutorial and maybe I have inspired you to give this "easy" technique a try!!!!

Until Next Time, Keep Crafting!

Hugs;