Poly Shrink - first attempt

Good evening y'all.    How's the weather where you are?     I do hope and pray that everyone's weather is getting better.     The highest it got here today was 37* and the ice and snow did do a little melting.     If the forecast holds true, it should be up to about 53* tomorrow.      Yay!!!!      I will be doing a louder Yay if the temp does actually reach the anticipated 53*.       If you hear someone yelling tomorrow, it may be me, yelling with joy as the ice and snow melts.     When it gets a little warmer, we will have the cleanup to do of the pine tree limbs in front of the garage.      While they are still weighted down with ice and snow, we are kinda leery of getting beneath the trees to move the limbs.    Could cause some more branches to shed off the trees and onto us.     Not something we want to do.

Here back I had ordered some "10 mil Polyshrink artist's grade shrink plastic" made by Lucky Squirrel.     I have never played with any shrink plastic, ever.     So, I didn't know what to expect.    I didn't know how the end results should look.      I knew nothing what so ever about it.      Basically, a big shot in the dark for me.     I did say it was "10 mil".    Realistically, that means nothing to me.     I know it has to do with the thickness.     When most people are speaking of shrink plastic, it is usually in the terms of 0.07 or 0.05 thicknesses, I think, but this was "10 mil".     I ordered black and clear.    I have only experimented with the black.  I did remember to try to take pics along the way as I played with it.

So, without further ado, I will show the pics and tell you a little of what I done in each step.     It was fun, but I still don't know if it turned out right or not.

I just wanted to show you what the pkg actually said about the thickness.   

Here, I had used my cuttlebug and Tim Holtz sizzix tattered floral bigz die to cut my pieces and also a sizzix mover and shaper die of a bow.    I used a piece of sandpaper on the pieces before I colored them, per instructions.    I used three colors of my Inka gold metallic rub, gold silver and purple.    I love that stuff.    It actually has bees wax in it and it blends and rubs on so wonderfully.     I colored each piece and also took some of the scrap and cut it into small bits with my scissors and placed it all on a piece of cardboard, as the instructions says to do.

The above pic shows the shrunken pieces on the card board.    I don't know if you can tell how thick they became, but they are about the thickness of the quarter that I used just to show scale.    The instructions says it shrinks down to about  45% of it original size.      So, it actually shrinks 55%.     More than half it's original size.

This is an up close shot of one of the flowers and a piece of scrap in the back.

Another flower, up close.   Notice how the coloring became scaly.

This is the smallest of the flowers on the die.     It actually cuts out about the size of a quarter, but it shrank down to smaller than a dime.     And a couple of other scraps.

This is the shrunk pieces laying on top of the box that the die came in showing the full size cut of the three largest flowers.      The flower at the bottom of the pic became very distorted and it wasn't even salvageable, so I tossed it.

So, the above pic is just after I put a coating of glossy accents on it to preserve the flaky coloring.

This one is after the glossy accents had dried.

I think they look pretty cool, but I haven't figured out how to use them yet.    Maybe on a 3d box or something like that.     

I will be trying it some more with other dies and seeing what else I can come up with.      These shrank so much, that I don't know how one could use it in jewelry, since you have to make a hole in before you put it in the oven.     It would have to be one honkin' big hole to keep it from just disappearing when placed in the oven.      So, I just don't know.     As I said, this is my first experience what so ever with plastic shrink.      I may have to get a diff brand to try just to see if it does anything diff or more of the same.      I can't say whether I like it or dislike it.    The flowers are cool, though.

That's it for this go around.   I hope you may find this useful in some way.    If not useful, maybe a little entertaining.    hahaha     I hope you have a wonderful rest of the evening and a great night.

Before I leave you, I want to leave you with a fav scripture of mine.

Matthew 7:7  Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Who are you dependent on; what are you yearning for; and how persistent are you?     Are your prayers based on the fulfillment of God's purposes in you life?    We should never give up seeking God.    We should ask God for more knowledge, love, wisdom, patience, understanding.    When we ask God for what He desires to give us, then He will answer those prayers.    When we keep on asking and keep on seeking and keep on knocking, then we show our faith, our focus and our follow-through.    So, as a follower of Christ, I keep asking, seeking and knocking on a daily basis.    I want to be open to God for His guidance and instructions for my life.    I hope you do to.

God bless y'all and hope to see you right back here real soon.   Hugs and much love, Patty