Unleash Your Creativity with Shrinky Dinks

There used to be a character in the game ‘Candyland’ called ‘Plumpy,’ which my extended family learned during a Family Game night after my brother shared some trivia about The Chocolate Swamp not being the original name of that area of the Candyland board. No one could remember what it used to be called, so we asked Alexa who shared that it used to be The Molasses Swamp. Alexa then elaborated, sharing that the character ‘Plumpy’ was unceremoniously removed from the game in 2002 due to the belief that he promoted an unhealthy lifestyle. Not one of us had remembered Plumpy from our childhoods but upon hearing this, several of the adults laughed so hard at the name that they fell out of their chairs. So, of course, I decided to make ornaments for my family for Christmas: everyone gets one Plumpy and one Candyland kid because we are an immature bunch who never forgets when something funny happens.

Note #1 – I bought the ‘frosted’ shrinky dinks, and I really wish that I had bought the ‘crystal clear’ ones. That’s because I traced the outline of the characters, but I could only do it while holding everything up against a window on a very sunny day (otherwise, you can’t see what you’re trying to trace). If I had a light board, that would have made my life much easier. So: buy the crystal clear ones if you’re tracing something!

Note #2 – These shrink, alright. To be exact: they get about one-third smaller. The photos are the before & after, and in both pictures the characters are lying on a standard-size greeting card envelope. The colors really pop, too, after they’ve been shrunk.

Note #3 – If you need a hole (say, for threading some fishing wire to make an ornament) then be sure to use an actual hole puncher and punch that hole BEFORE you bake/shrink these. As you can see from the photos, I botched the ‘hole punch’ part because I used kitchen knife. I had left space at the ‘hand’ area of the characters for a small hole, but all I did was slice/split the material. I thought that I could instead punch them after they’ve been shrunken/baked. I cannot – they’re way too thick now. So now they’re very tiny bookmarks.