Always playing about

I keep finding new reasons to love this stamp set ... this time it's shrink plastic. Yes, I know, not something that Stampin' Up! sell, but it was so much fun I had to share with you!

I found some shrink plastic that I bought a while back and decided to have a play - but the thing with this stuff is that ... well, it shrinks. You need to use an image that is a decent size to start off with as the finished product will be around a third of the original size. And that's where the heart from Always comes in - it measures about 6cm from top to bottom so makes a good sized charm when shrunk.

So how did I do this? I simply stamped the heart onto the shrink plastic with Stazon (carefully so as not to smudge the ink), trimmed it as neatly as possible, punched a hole in at the top (very important to do this *before* you shrink) and blasted the plastic with my heat gun while it curled and contorted and finally shrunk to its finished size.

When the plastic has finished shrinking the piece will be considerably thicker than it was at the start, and sturdy enough to make fun jewellery from. I decided not to colour these earrings, but I could have used coloured Sharpies. And because I have been known to suffer allergic reactions to jewellery findings I just used some jump rings and made a chain to hang the hearts from my (non allergenic) sleepers.

A reminder that this particular set is from the Stampin' Up! Spring Mini Catalogue and as such, is only available until the end of this month ... if you have been thinking about buying it but kept putting it off, I would hate for you to miss out! Contact me to place your order today!

Images © 1990-2008 Stampin' Up!®

Supplies used:

Stamp sets: Always
Ink: Stazon
Other: Cropadile
The stamped heart uses Purely Pomegrate ink on Whisper White cardstock, and Pretty in Pink ink on Pretty in Pink cardstock.