Puppy's Got a Brand New Tag

Remember Shrinky Dinks? I remember coloring those plastic sheets as a kid, cutting out the characters and baking them until they’d turned into little plastic toys. I can’t remember exactly which ones I had, but they were probably Smurfs or Strawberry Shortcake or something along those lines. By today’s standards these toys might seem a bit dull. But to me, they were thrilling.

These days, you can buy blank sheets of the plastic and design your Shrinky Dinks yourself. I’d been thinking of playing around with Shrinky Dinks for a while now, and our puppy needed a new ID tag, so it seemed like the perfect chance to try them out. I started with shrink film by Grafix, which I bought at the craft store. (Next time I’m going to see if the flat portion of a plastic takeout container will work just as well, which would be a great way to upcycle it.) Using sharpies, I drew a penny (three inches in diameter) and added Penny’s name and our phone number.

Then I cut out the circle and used a hole punch near the top edge. I put it on a cookie sheet between two pieces of parchment paper and baked at 350 degrees for three minutes. While baking, the plastic curls up and then flattens down again. It should be mostly flat by the time you take it out of the oven. If it’s slightly curved when you take it out of the oven, you can flatten it with a spatula. After the tag cooled, I coated it with Modge Podge to seal in the color.

Ta-dah! Now Penny is stylin’ with her own custom dog tag.

This was just as much fun as I remember. I’m looking forward to experimenting with other projects using shrinky film. It’s so quick and easy! I’m thinking about making magnets, wine charms, quilting pins, and custom eyes and noses for softies. More shrinky projects to come!

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