Shrink film is the bees knees!!

Yesterday afternoon, I tried out shrink film for the 1st time. I have decided that I love the stuff! In fact, I like the little medallion I made yesterday so much, that I made another today to wear as a pendant. This time, I took blow by blow photos. The shrinking is unbelievable! If you look at the photo, the large circle with flower on the right is the original size. The little one on the left is the finished size.




Step 1 : Cut and stamp. I used a 3 3/4 inch circle die with prepunched hole and a Stampin' up flower stamp from the fifth avenue floral series. The ink was reflective interference ink in sterling frost from the Tsukineko Opalite range. The instructions suggest sanding the film 1st, but I decided to just give it a go with and see what happens... It's pretty slippery, so stamp with steady hands!







Step 2 : Shrink! I used my heat tool instead of the oven although the product sheet says you can do both. I figured I would get better control with my heat gun. Just run the heat tool over the cut and stamped film and watch the show! Try not to get too caught up in the theatrics of it and keep moving the tool around, or your film will look like something out of Picasso's dreams. Not to worry even if it happens though, just flip it occasionally from back to front and it will sort itself out. After that, squash it in between 2 books while it's still a little wobbly, give it a few seconds, and you're done!























Step 3 : I decided to go on and emboss it with some glitter (cause I LIKE sparkly things. No better reason than that...). So I just lightly pressed it on my embossing pad and sprinkled some Tsukineko sparkly embossing powder over it. Don't ask me what colour it is. The only words in English on the bottle are emboss and Tsukineko. Everything else is Japanese. Heat it again like you would embossing paper, and...

Voila!! You're done. Easy peasy lemon squeezy...

Bottom pics are the finished product before and after it became a necklace.

Points to note... Make sure the surface you're heating it on is not going to melt and warp while you're in the middle of your masterpiece. I suggest tweezers 'cause that bit of film can BURN! I found out the hard way.