What do you remember about shrink papers? Don’t you remember the shrink art that we used to do when we were small? We used to call them Shrinky Dinks and used to create many things with it. Now the old thing has come back to scrapbooking as an important embellishment.

What is Shrink Paper or Film?

Shrink paper is a plastic like film which is used for many purposes. In this case, we use it for embellishment of scrapbook layouts. Although there was not much news about shrink papers for years, scrapbooking has made its discovery in shrink papers and it is on its way to the top, being increasingly popular among the scrapbook album makers from lately.

How do you make Shrink Art?

The process of making shrink art from shrink papers is quite easy and straightforward. No expertise is required on shrink papers in order to create shrink art to make your scrapbooking experience wonderful. So here’s what you need to have ready for creating or rather, cooking shrink art!

  1. Shrink paper (or sometimes called shrink plastic / shrink film)
  2. An oven
  3. Protective gloves

You can buy shrink papers from the local supermarket or local crafts store. These are inexpensive and easily available. Choose the right shrink paper that you would like to have attached to your scrapbook layout.

Shrink wrapping your Photos

Take the shrink paper and print your favorite photograph on to the shrink paper. Make sure that you select an appropriate shrink paper for this purpose as not all shrink papers can go through a conventional printer. Otherwise, you will damage the printer permanently.

Once the photograph is printed onto the shrink paper, punch a small hole in to the top of the photograph. This hole comes in handy when the shrink art is to be hung on a scrapbook layout. Now take some scissors and cut the shrink paper while keeping a good margin around the photograph, you dont want the shrink paper to be too small for the photograph once it is shrunk.

Now put the photograph in to the oven and keep it there until the paper is shrunk. Once taken out, you are looking at a wonderful creation to embellish your scrapbook album. Make sure you use protective gloves for taking the shrink paper out of the oven as its temperature can be very high. Now you can send a thread through the hole in the photograph and hang it on a scrapbook layout. Or else, it is possible to simply glue the shrink art on to a scrapbook layout. There are many creative ways to embellish a scrapbook album with a shrink art.

What other shrink art can I use on my Scrapbook Layout?

Other than photographs, there are many other things that can be used for embellishment of a scrapbook. Take the alphabet as an example; each letter can be printed on to shrink paper and cook them in an oven. Then these letters can be used to embellish the scrapbook in many ways. Especially if the scrapbook album is for a kid, this kind of creative ideas may help the kid to learn as well.

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