Ok, my crafting schedule is a little full these days between Iron Craft, Project Project Runway, the Granny Square Afghan Sampler Project and the Advent Calendar Project. In any given week I have three projects that are due. Something is bound to fall between the cracks. I was afraid it was going to be Iron Craft this week. I struggled to come up with a project that I could make in the time I had left myself. At first I was going to try to make Olympic and English theme swizzle sticks from shrinky dink plastic, but my husband vetoed it on the ground that he didn’t know if shrink dink plastic was food safe. So, it was back to the drawing board. I started wondering if I could make a colorwork knitting chart of the Queen’s silhouette. I sat down and started playing and came up with this.
I also decided to chart up the jubilee crown. I don’t know, do you see the queen there? Maybe if you squint a little. It’s based on the profile used on stamps and coins.
Ok, maybe it’s a little more Simpsons’ version of the Queen. I do think the crown charted up nicely though. I decided to go ahead and knit it up to see if it looked any closer to what I wanted, so I did a quick coffee cozy.
© 2005 – 2012 Kathy Lewinski & Susan Cornish
Nice job. I never did ask what you were doing and look what you whipped up.
For future information, shrink plastic is food safe. I’ve never actually used name brand Shrinky Dinks. When you buy baked goods, and at my King Soopers croissants tend to be in the right type bin, the plastic tupper they come in is shrink plastic! Save any plastic packaging that’s labeled as #6 for recycling as it’s the same plastic Shrinky Dinks are made out of.
Your #6 comes to you clear, and big packages like those that the croissants are in are plenty big. You can cut a plain square from the front of the packaging. I throw the textured bits in the recycling bin, but I’ve heard of folks shrinking them too.
Sand one side of your salvaged plastic sheet with a fine grit sand paper. I usually use 220 and make small circles as I go. When you’re done, your plastic will look more like frosted glass.
Now that your plastic has some texture, you can color it as you would Shrinky Dinks. At this point you’d want to make sure your colors were non-toxic but still waterproof.
Finally, pop your #6 plastic shapes in the toaster oven and shrink them up just like you would with real Shrinky Dinks. Follow the same time/temperature guidelines you use for your Shrinky Dinks.
Hope that helps! I’ve used salvaged #6 plastic to make yarn bobbins for my knitting!
NOTE: I’m not sure what colorings and additives they use in Shrinky Dinks. The actual #6 plastic is food safe, but be careful about whatever color you chose to add to #6 plastics and question what colorings are put into branded kid’s shirnk plastics. I’d say just stick with the #6 plastic. Recycling is better than going out and buying even more plastics!