Shrink Plastic Earrings

Hello! Alison here. I have a fun and simple project to share with you today, and I hope it will inspire you to look at your stamps in a new way. I am a jewelry maker through and through. I went to college for it, and I've been making jewelry since I was probably about 4 years old. There is often not enough time for me to make any, and I feel a loss inside when it's been too long. Does that happen to you? Anyway, I decided to "feed the beast" so to speak with this quick pair of earrings that I made for my daughter. The White Rose Crafts DT is focusing on "feminine" projects this month, so that was my starting point.

Do you recognize those stars? They are from Lawn Fawn's Simply Celebrate stamp set. I stamped the image on to shrink plastic with StazOn ink and colored them with Sharpie markers. Nothing fancy, each star only uses a single marker color. Then I fussy cut them out (there are coordinating dies, but I don't have them), and punched a hole in the red star. Using my heat tool, I shrunk the stars down, making sure I had an acrylic block nearby to help flatten them when the shrinking was done.

To give you an idea of the size difference, here is the stamp next to the shrunken stars. Big difference, right? What stamps do you have that you can shrink to make jewelry with? I have been using Shrinky Dinks for jewelry for longer than I can remember, and it's always fun to look at my stamps and imagine how they would work as a necklace, or earrings, etc.
As sweet as the stars were on their own, I decided that the earrings needed a little something more. I found some great white tube beads that have a bit of faceting to them and a pearly finish, so they catch the light beautifully. To add some more movement, I added some teardrop beads that have pretty colors to bring out the colors in the stars.

My daughter loves them, and I do too. You can change the look of them easily by coloring the stars in different colors, and adding different beads. I'm planning on making more Shrinky Dink jewelry very soon.....I've got a fun idea that I came up with recently, I just hope it works! Be on the lookout for it. In the meantime, why not head over to White Rose Crafts LLC to see what wonderful new products have hit the shop. Thanks for stopping by. Have an inspiring day!