Alcohol Inks-Shrink-Plastic-Tutorial

After swapping out my shrink plastic charms last weekends some of the ladies in the group had questions about my process so I thought I'd just go ahead and post a tutorial on how I did it.
Here's what you'll need: Shrink Film ( I like Grafix brand for consistency of shrink) stamp, permanent ink, alcohol inks, dauber, hole punch and clear embossing powder or diamond glaze.
The first step is to ink the film. Just load up your dauber and go. The colors will really intensify when it shrinks so don't worry if it doesn't look like you've got a lot of color.

Next you need to flip your shrink-plastic over and stamp the image on it. Permanent inks and alcohol inks don't play well together so it's important not to stamp them on the same side. Again, remember that the color will intensify with shrinking. I am using a pale purple color here. I found it helpful to do a test one without the alcohol inks just to see what the stamp and the ink will look like shrunk.
Once this is dry, cut out the image and punch a hole. I always use my biggest hole punch since the hole will shrink with everything else.
Pop it into the oven at 250 (you can use your heat gun and a heat proof mat for this also.) If you're cooking in the oven use a brown piece of paper (like from a grocery bag) to cook on. This keeps it from sticking. Don't panic if it curls. They do that. Let it keep cooking--you'd be surprised 99% of the time they work themselves out flat. When it's done shrinking give it about 20 more seconds and then pull it out. Using a heating pad or metal spatula flatten it just a tiny bit more.
Once it's out and cooled you need to seal it. You can use diamond glaze (which I am too impatient to let dry) or clear embossing powder. I like to attach a little text to the back of my charms, so after cutting it out and securing it using just a tiny bit of glue, I coat the charm in clear embossing powder. You can do this by sprinkling it on, or using a clear embossing ink.



Heat it up--you can use your heat gun or just pop it back into your oven. And viola!
To give you some idea of the shrink ratio, here is a photo of the stamp in my hand and then shrunk charm in my hand.



So tiny and cute!