I had a ton of fun using PolyShrink last year. I made bracelets, pins, earrings, and wine charms. I posted 2 of my bracelets on the following site:
http://lorilynn.bc2va.org/cgi-bin/in...y=Gift_Gallery
A few things I learned along the way:
Use the heat gun against a metal surface....such as a metal tray. I don't have one, so I covered a piece of cardboard with aluminum foil and it works great!
Use a stylus to hold in place, flipping as you go so that you don't get a "poke" mark.
Heat until it flattens. It will curl, but you need to keep going!
When image is done shrinking and flattens, immediately, press something on top....I use a 4"x4" piece of cardboard.
The larger the polyshrink image, the more trouble you will have....smaller images work so much better!
An image with detail tends to curl upon itself. If you've looked at the bracelets on the link posted above, you'll notice I made one with Botanicals and one with Crayon Kids. The Crayon Kids bracelet is a fun bracelet to wear, but was a nightmare to make! The Botanicals bracelet was much, much easier to make with far less waste. Each square was punched with the largest square punch, rounded with the corner rounder. When shrunk I immediately pressed against a wooden ball to give it a domed or rounded effect.
I held a couple of classes using PolyShrink and found that everyone was much more successful with the punched out images (using the large square punch) than anything larger. We made wine charms using Close to Nature and were very successful, yet the charms made using Elegant Ornaments were somewhat more difficult!
Stamp with StazOn. Dries quickly. However, if you need more variety of colors, Craft Ink will work, but literally will take days to dry! With the StazOn, you do not need to sand the PolyShrink. With the Craft Ink, you will need to LIGHTLY sand the surface. Do not sand too much, or you will not get a clear image...it will blur!
My favorite method of coloring would have to be SU chalk Pastels. The colors are much more vibrant when shrunk. (See the Crayon Kids bracelet.)
Making pins with PolyShrink is loads of fun. Try layering them. To glue pieces on top and give it more dimension, use Crystal Effects. It's a great glue for this purpose and works really well.
Oh, and be sure to punch any holes needed BEFORE you shrink! Don't punch too close to the edge or they tend to open during the shrinking process.
A really fun thing to do (but really doesn't scan well) would be to brush a piece of prepared (punch and rounded, etc.) PolyShrink with your ink color and allow to dry. Then shrink. While still hot press into an uninked stamp, creating an impression. I made a pretty pair of dangling earrings this way....punched out with the large square punch and rounded the corners; sponged with the purple color StazOn; shrunk, and then pressed into the Filigree stamp. They look quite classy, if I may say so (don't scream "I made them!!!").
Have fun! Hope you'll post what you create.
BarbaraD
Ployshrink blues...
