Shrinky Dinks meet Cricut Markers

***WARNING SHRINKY DINKS CAN BE ADDICTIVE (BUT NOT AT ALL HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH)***

Well certain enablers over at the cricut message board (they know who they are) have been talking about shrinky dinks for a while, and I bought a package on Thanksgiving, but I really have had no time to play with them until this last week, and of course now I can't seem to stop making them. Up until this week, they were my daughter's domain and I have spent a lot of time drawing Christmas shapes for her to color and cut out.

I spent the first day just trying to cut some numbers and experimenting with stamping on the shrinky dinks, and then my Cricut markers caught my eye (since I finally got my husband to hang the shelf I bought so I could reorganize my supplies). Now I have always been a fan of the Cricut markers, and while I recently have used the Cri-kuts more, this project has knocked those right out of the running as my favorite drawing tool. Sure enough, with some layering on my Gypsy and my licensed cartridges, those markers made it super easy to create great shrinky dinks for my daughter and I to color (she made me share).

Here's what we have been up to:

Tinkerbell and Friends

Spongebob and Friends

Cinderella

Hello Kitty

The crafty details:

The sizes of the cuts all vary, they could be anywhere from 2 to 6 inches, when doing the character sets I tried to make them somewhat proportional to each other (yet Spongebob is still huge). Some characters draw more complete images than others, and for Hello Kitty I used the Silhouette feature.  I followed the marker directions just as if I were using paper, and on the first layer drew the images with the marker. Then I switched out the marker for the blade, and cut out a shadow on the second layer (with a welded circle from George). I used max pressure, blade depth of 6, and multi-cut twice.

When we unloaded the mat, we had pre-drawn Shrinky Dinks ready to be colored with watercolor pencils. Then we baked them at 325 on a piece of parchment paper in the toaster oven. As you can see, we used them in a variety of ways: a necklace, a pin, and a card for her teacher. I am hoping to get a shrinky dink break today, but I doubt it, as I am sure my little addict will come looking for some more. I hope to write a tutorial soon with more detail, but as I start back to work this week, I can't make any definite promises.