Grafix Shrink Film - Clear Transparent 8.5"x11" Sheets, Design Your Art and Shrink It to Create Jewelry, Embellishments, Paper Crafts, Gift Tags, Ornaments and More, Pack of 50

Honestly, reading all the reviews on here about this product and also the unsanded version made my head spin, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. So glad I did because it worked fine! I have to make 100 little charms for a church camp so I really wanted to be able to avoid doing them all by hand. After doing a couple of tests for size I took my master sheet to my local office store and they color copied it onto the sanded side for me, just like an overhead transparency. It looked pretty light and I was worried about the vibrancy of the finished product (I had done my original test ones with Sharpies and they were great). The guy did stick his finger print into the middle of one of them which smudged ever so slightly, but I doubt anyone else would have noticed it especially once it was baked. I came home, cut them out and baked one. I had a piece of baking parchment on the top and bottom as per the instructions. It did stick and took off a little of the ink--again, I'm probably the only one who can see it. I didn't put the parchment on top of the second test one and it was fine. The color of the shrunk end product is great and I needn't have worried about how light the original printing was. The cooled printing seems pretty durable when scratched with my fingernail. If I really wanted to fuss with them, I'd probably spray clear on the printed side and white on the shiny so that they'd really pop, but since it's probably something that the kids are going to loose within a month I'm not going to bother. Unbaked, they're about 2 square inches and they shrunk 50%. I baked them at 300*F. My first test pieces were baked individually and they took 3 minutes. When I baked 10 together I used a bigger, heavier baking sheet and they took about 4 1/2 minutes before they were finished. I may raise the temp to 325 for my next batch. I had very little warping. I don't know if I'd want to attempt this on my own printer, but I was VERY pleased with the results I got having them done at the office store. It's worth the 75c a sheet to have it done on the big machine. I would highly recommend this product and this method to anyone.

I priced the Shrinky-Dink brand shrink film and realized it would be too expensive for my large group of kids so I started looking for alternatives. This film by Grafix is perfect and priced very well. This particular film is clear so the resulting shrinky designs look a lot like stained glass. Grafix also offers white film and even film that can be run through your ink jet printer! If you've never used shrinkable film, here's a little tutorial. You'll need shrinkable film, permanent markers or colored pencils, scissors, some parchment paper and something to bake in. I use a cheap toaster oven that I reserve for this and for baking Sculpy clay. Optional supplies are some fine grit sandpaper for lightly sanding the film when using colored pencils, a hole punch, some jump rings and needle nose pliers, key rings and some adhesive-backed magnets. I cut each sheet of film into quarters because a quarter sheet is a good size for shrinking. Larger sheets sometimes shrink strangely and curl in odd ways. Have the child draw a design onto the quarter sheet film, trying to fill the film as much as possible because it will shrink by 50%. If their design is too small, it will be miniscule after baking! If you wish to turn your shrinky designs into charms, keychains or necklaces, you'll need to punch a hole with a hole punch somewhere in the design before baking. If you want to make refrigerator magnets, no hole is necessary. Then cut around the design as desired. Turn your oven on to 350 degrees and let it heat up. A toaster oven works brilliantly for this because it heats very quickly and has a glass door for watching the magic happen. Place the design on a piece of parchment paper and lay on a metal baking tray and place in the oven. Watch closely because the baking process is short! You will notice that the design begins to shrink and curl up. Don't worry. As the shrinking completes, the design will uncurl and become flat again. When it has pretty much flattened out, remove it from the oven. I use tongs and gloves for this because the plastic is very, very hot. Place it on a heat proof surface and slam a heavy book on top of it to make it completely flat. (Kids LOVE this part.) Ta da! You've made a shrinky dink! Sometimes with larger designs or ones with a lot of long thin sections, it will curl a lot and perhaps stick to itself. I have a chopstick I keep next to the toaster oven for intervening when this happens. You will see that the film ends up being much thicker after shrinking so it is no longer flexible. You can seal your design with clear nail polish or a spray sealant, if desired. Magic marker designs can chip a little if not sealed. Colored pencils seem to make the most durable designs, but you need to lightly sand your film before drawing the design. Sanding creates a tooth for the colored pencil lead to catch on. Sand lightly in both directions in a hatch-type fashion. Hint: Buy some metallic Sharpie markers even if you plan to use colored pencils. They add sparkle to every design and the kids seem to adore using them. They come in gold, silver and bronze. Any kid old enough to draw will love making shrinky designs. Kids 11 or 12 or older can even do the baking themselves with supervision. If you're looking for a fun art project to do with kids, I promise you they will be thrilled with this one.

Just like the fun Shrinky Dinks we all remember as kids, these are just as fun and easy - they are basically the next generation of Shrinky Dinks. Grafix Sanded Shrink Film has a great surface to color on - these thick sheets of plastic accept lots of media. I have successfully used all sorts of things to add color to these prior to shrinking, but the best advice I can give you is to experiment and see what works best for you. (If you are truly stumped, Sharpies are foolproof with these.) These save you a step since they arrive pre-sanded and ready to go. The sanding helps the plastic really grab and hold onto color - and these retain crazy detail. Stamping with StazOn (or similar permanent ink) is one of my favorite uses for these - it is so easy to make darling embellishments, gift tags, jewelry charms, etc in no time at all with this method. A quick stamp, a bit of color, a hole punched for hanging...heat with a heat gun or toaster oven (or the regular oven) and VIOLA! Very sweet creation that didn't require any drawing or artistic skills at all, but look like they did. I have found these shrink to about 40% of their original size and become quite thick. People will wonder where you bought them and you will enjoy telling them your wacky, crafty self actually made them. (Don't tell them how easy it was - a good artist/crafter never gives up all the secrets! lol) I love using these on "consumable" gifts - flowers, food, etc. You know, gifts that don't last forever. By making a personalized charm and attaching it with a ribbon around flowers...taking an extra 2 minutes to adhere a magnet to the back (after shrinking!) and presenting your personalized magnet with concert tickets...or even spending an extra 5 minutes and adding some super easy ear wires (maybe a bead or two if you have some around) - then attaching them to the edible item you are gifting with bakers string or twine - and you will be giving two gifts in one. Every time the recipient wears the earrings or looks at the magnet, they will remember the gift and think of you. I love stuff like that. (Just remember these shrink to almost half the size you originally create - so be sure to get the correct size magnet!) (Ask me how I know...never mind.) I also used these a lot when my kids were small. I made personalized tags for their backpacks, etc, by attaching these with ball chain key chains. Although the ball chain key chains are incredibly cheap, you could always use whatever you have handy to attach these - ribbon, glue, string, a split ring key chain, etc. Since these are so easy to write on (with Sharpie, for example) and are so easy to read once reduced, I've made some very fun "over the hill" cards, and included a plastic magnifying glass for the aging friend. My problem is not finding a use for these...it is stopping! I want to write, draw, stamp, and then shrink everything! (The phone company probably wouldn't appreciate receiving a shrunken copy of my check as payment, for example. They're sense of humor is lacking. Ask me how I know...forget it.) Ok, ok. I'll stop now! Bottom Line: Extremely easy to use. Accepts a wide variety of media. I find using a heat gun to shrink these to be the easiest method, but they work just as well in a regular or toaster over. These will distort as they shrink, sometimes the plastic kind of folds up on itself. No worries! They usually straighten out without any intervention - if not, CAREFULLY peel apart while the plastic is still warm. (Right out of the oven or just as you turn off the heat gun.) Remember, they will be HOT! Using a pick or similar tool, gently pull apart and press to flatten. You can always briefly return them to your heat source if you need to. Similarly, you can lift the still-warm plastic and carefully lay it over a mold (pop can, cup, bottle, whatever) to shape the plastic. Leave it on the mold until cool. How fun is that?! Just please remember the plastic is HOT and careful attention must be paid to avoid injury. (Ask me how I know...or don't!) It's also important to remember to punch any holes BEFORE shrinking. Although you can drill holes afterward, it is much easier to make the hole prior to heating. (Yes, the hole shrinks, too...so don't make some tiny hole thinking you are only connecting it to a jump ring or something - because the hole will melt closed. Or so I've heard. <ahem>) Before heating, the plastic is in sheet form - think thick transparency. After heating, the sheet becomes approximately 9 times thicker and is not at all flexible once cool. (The plastic will snap instead of bend.) These are also not for use in any printer - be sure to get the type for printers if that is your intended use. (Again, ask me how I know...or not!) I wholeheartedly recommend these for adults and children (with supervision for the heating part, duh) and consider these a fantastic family project. The large number of sheets you receive in this package will keep you shrinking for a long time!

When I first received the package, it looked like a bunch of old projector transparencies sheets (if any of you remember what a transparency is). It is 100% clear, unlike the original shrinky dink sheets which are already sanded on one side. The instructions said that you would need to sand it before use. My thoughts were "oh well, for the price, you get what you paid for... extra work!" :-( But I was pleasantly suprised. Sanding is not necessary. You can use it just as it is with permanent markers. It looks great - vibrant colors on a clear shiny background! Or if you want to, you can take about 12 seconds with a sand block to prep one side for colored pencils and/or permanent markers. Colored pencils won't cling to the smooth surface. You'll have the original shrinky dink look if you go that route. It cooks up a little bit thicker than the original shrinky dinks too, which is nice... The catch is that this shrinks about 50% (as opposed to 33% - 40% with SD's). All in all, it's definitely a bargin compared to buying the original shrinky dink refill sheets. Big savings on the price, nice results. Well worth it, especially if you have creative kiddies or a scrapbooking fetish like I do.

I'm not really sure what others would do with so much green shrink plastic, but I purchased it for a specific costuming project. I didn't end up using it for the costume, but I did end up creating a really nifty sea anemone prop out of this plastic. Here's what I can tell you about this shrink plastic: The color is exactly what you see. It is definitely a neon green plastic. You get a lot of it. For as inexpensive as this product is, you sure do get your money's worth of shrinking plastic! I had to fiddle around with it a bit to get it to shrink correctly. There seems to be a "right side" and a "wrong side" to the plastic. If you bake it in the oven on the "wrong side" it curls up on itself. This worked to my advantage, as the prop I was making needed to bend over on itself. However, if you are making something that needs to be flat, figure out which side to cook it on with scrap plastic. There was a very slight odor as the plastic melted, but I would expect that with plastic. It was minimal, and diffused quickly. I tried out sharpies for coloring on this, and they showed up vibrantly. Colored pencils also work, but you have to sand the plastic first, in order for the colors to show up. The green is not great for having colored pencils show up, however. I would imagine that lighter / neutral colors would work better.

We love this product! It takes a couple of uses to get the hang of it... We use it for creating pendants and other art/ mixed media projects. If you are old enough to remember the joy of Shrinky Dinks... They used to come in many cereal boxes when I was a child. You would color the prestamped designs with colored pencils... Those shrinky dinks were sanded... The colored pencil was able to stick to the surface because of the sanding process... It was fun... you could make them into pencil decorations or keychains... hang them from a book bag or carry them in your pocket... Remembering how fun they were... I went looking for a product that we could "design" ourselves... This works great with Sharpie markers... I have made several things and so has my son! I am looking forward to trying the sanded one they make as well and I am also interested in getting inkjet compatible (I think those would be sanded surfaces as well... and best in a different color.) . I am very glad they offer this on Amazon and am glad for the price... As I said... it is tricky... if it's in too long... it burns... it curls up sometimes on itself... you have to remember to punch the holes at the top before baking it... But it is so much fun!

This product definitely requires a bit of finessing, but I really love it. My preferred method is to sand both sides with super fine grit sand paper,outline my drawing in pencil, color it in with colored pencil and then go over my pencil outlines with a super fine micron (.003) permanent marker. My work is very detailed and the finest sharpie just doesn't do it, plus I find that it bleeds to a purply haze in a way that the Micron doesn't. I use a heat tool to shrink mine so at I can flatten any slight warping at the end immediately. My pieces are tiny so I put them in a box and shrink them. That way they don't fly away as much. I like this white product because it is more forgiving and I am able to mount my pieces on ring blanks or pin backs without them showing through. When sanding, sand the full sheet diagonally one direction, then the other, then in circular motions. You can hold up the sheet in the light and see if there is any glossiness left. I find that this method is the only way I can be sure not to have scratches in my pieces that catch my color and are very noticeable on the finished product. One note is that colored pencil colors will darken and bleed in surprising ways once shrunk and sealed. I have a set of small colored squares that I made with the name of the color written on them and half of the squares glazed so that I can see the difference once shrunk. It has been extremely helpful. Try to color extremely lightly or the color will look a bit chalky and too dense. Reds, oranges and teals bleed more than other. I tried sharpies for color and thought they were too dark and streaky. Watercolors were ok but too hard to work with.

This was so much fun! We used it for two different age groups (7-11 and 12-18). Both groups loved making these! We did buy tassel keychains to put on them if the kids wanted. We cut the pages into 6ths. That seemed to be about the right size for putting on a keychain. You can also put these through your printer. I needed to have a small stack of them in my printer tray as it would pull them through funny if I didn't. One page got stuck but I was able to get it out after it melted in half :O I only printed about 15 pages with lines and left the rest blank for freeform design and writing. Any holes you make in them will shrink, so we used a half inch sized hole punch, a little smaller would be ok but I just used what I had. I would definitely do a bit of testing as lots of different things affect the shrinking process. Don't panic when they start to curl up, I ruined my first ones by opening the oven door and trying to fix them. We did have a few get stuck but we were able to mostly uncurl them before they cooled to much, and there was plenty for the kids to just make another. Toaster ovens work too but take a while if you are doing more than one or two. Microwaves do not work. We also learned to only put one tray in at a time to shrink. Enjoy!!