It’s that time of year again when Halloween is just around the corner! Ghosts and goblins and ghouls… Oh, my! We have a really fun and easy DIY Shrinky Dink Halloween Project for you plus a FREE printable. As you may or may not know, we love Shrinky Dinks around here and you must, too! Join us today for our DIY Shrinky Dinks for Halloween and make a fun charm bracelet. There is a FREE printable available below to use to do the project along with us so let’s go!
Just in case you are not familiar Shrinky Dinks are shrinkable plastic sheets that get miniaturized when they are heated.
Today we are going to do a DIY Shrinky Dink Project making Halloween charms for Halloween!
We also have another Easy and Fun Shrinky Dinks ideas where we make earrings, magnets, phone charms, and more to get more ideas that you can make for this project as well.
Please download our FREE Halloween Shrinky Dink Printable to follow along the project with us.
Or, of course, you are welcome to design your own if you wish! This printable can also be used as a coloring page if you wish.
What you Need for our DIY Shrinky Dinks for Halloween Project:
- Shrinky Dink Paper
- Scissors
- Hole Puncher
- Coloring pencils
- Baking Sheet
- Aluminum Foil
- Parchment Paper
- Shrinky Dink Printable (Download our FREE Halloween Shrinky Dink Printable or you can create your own!)
- Jewelry Jump Rings
- Jewelry Pliers
- Bracelet or Necklace (or both!)
Step 1: Print Out the DIY Halloween Shrinky Dink Printable
The first step is to print out our FREE Halloween Shrinky Dink Printable
Step 2: Trace Halloween Designs on to Shrinky Dink Paper
The first step is to trace us the Halloween Printable that we provide on to the Shrinky Dink Paper. We used a black colored pencil to trace our designs. That worked really well.
Make sure to put the glossy side of the paper down and the rough side up when tracing.
The printable that we provide is a standard 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper. The Shrinky Dink paper that we used is much smaller – it’s 8” x 5 ¾. We ended up using two of our small sheets to be able to create all of the provided Halloween designs from the printable.
The best advice is when you trace the Shrinky Dink designs onto to the Shrinky Dink paper to try make the most of your space by keeping the designs close to each other but still giving enough room for a small border around and room at the top of the design to be able to punch a hole in the top to make a charm.
If you happen to have a Shrinky Dink paper that is a standard size 8 ½” x 11” then that’s even better because you can just trace the printable designs as provided.
We used the paper from this Baphile Kit
Halloween Shrinky Dink Video Tutorial
Step 3: Color Your Shrinky Dinks
Now this is fun part! It’s time to color your Shrinky Dinks. We used colored pencils to color in our Shrinky Dinks. They work really well and the colors come out bright and vivid!
For coloring our designs, we used the classic Halloween Color palette to color our with black, purple, orange, green, and white mostly.
Get creative and make the project your own and color the designs any way your heart desires! Just for fun we incorporated some striped designs into our Shrinky Dinks.
Another tip is that to make sure to use a white colored pencil for white areas and not leave them blank. It will come out more vivid this way.
Step 4: Cut Out Your Shrinky Dinks
Now that you have traced and colored your Shrinky Dink designs, it’s time to cut them out!
**Parents please supervise and assist your children with this step**
Carefully cut around your designs. We left a small border around our designs and also plenty of room at the top of the design so we have a place to punch a hole in the top (our next step!). Also, made sure to round edges to not have sharp corners (the corners can break and also since we are making jewelry charms we don’t want to have sharp edges).
Step 5: Punch a Hole in the Top of Your Shrinky Dink
Now that the Shrinky Dinks have been cut out, use a hole puncher to punch a hole at the top of each design. Try to center it as best as possible.
If you want to create charms, jewelry, earrings, or phone dangles, make sure not to skip this step because it’s not possible to do once the Shrinky Dink is bake and shrunk.
Step 6: Time to Bake the DIY Shrinky Dinks
The next step is to bake our lovely Shrinky Dink Designs. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
Take your baking sheet and cover it with a layer of aluminum foil. Then place each design with the smooth side down and rough side up. Make sure to give each design room on the baking sheet. When heated the Shrinky Dinks can move and your don’t want them getting stuck together!
Place the baking sheet with designs into your preheated oven. Let them bake from 2-4 minutes. I suggest that you stay there and watch because the Shrinky Dinks can bake fast and you don’t want to forge them!
You can place a sheet of parchment paper over the designs as well to help keep them flat. This is optional. Since we were taping a video for this tutorial we opted not to do this so we could get footage of the Shrinky Dinks baking but it’s an option.
Also, don’t worry if you see a lot of movement and the Shrinky Dink plastic curls up during baking. It will most likely flatten out.
After the Shrinky Dinks have baked and shrunk, remove the baking sheet from the oven and turn the oven off. If any Shrinky Dinks remained curled take a flat object (we used a craft rolling pin or you could use a spatula) to flatten them out. When they cool they harden and you won’t be able to adjust them.
Step 7: Let the Shrinky Dinks Cool
Now give the Shrinky Dinks time to cool. They cool fairly quickly but be sure not to touch them with your bare hand immediately as they are initially very hot. Let them cool for 10 – 20 minutes.
Step 8: Place The Open Jump Rings on Shrinky Dinks
Once the Shrinky Dinks have cooled you can remove them from the baking sheet.
Then take each design and attach a jump ring to the punched hole in the top of the design. The jump ring is the small metal hoop that attaches the charm to a necklace, bracelet, or key chain, etc.
I used a pair of jewelry pliers to help me with this. You can use one of those if you have one or a small needle nose pliers. I suppose you could do without the jewelry pliers as well but the pliers do make it easier.
Here is a great, quick video that I found on YouTube instructing on how to open and close a jump ring using jewelry pliers: https://www.google.com/search?q=Open+Jump+Rings&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS830US830&oq=Open+Jump+Rings+&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.993j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#kpvalbx=_BZB0X4qUNce4gge-kJS4Cw19
Step 9: Put the Shrinky Ding Charm on a Bracelet or Necklace
The last step is to now take your charms and put them on a bracelet or necklace. We actually made both!
For our necklace, the kit that we used has ball chains that you can use for key chains or make a necklace out of it. We connected several ball chains together to make it big enough for a necklace.
For the bracelet, we just used a sturdy piece of thread.
You can arrange the DIY Shrinky Dink Halloween Charms any way you like. Ours look like the pictures below!
Hope you enjoyed this craft. Have a safe and Happy Halloween and we will catch you for our next craft!
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