by Nikol Lohr

Last month, my friend Grace threw a slumber party featuring cocktails, junk food, a Ouija board, and Shrinky Dinks. If you're my age (29), you probably need no explanation of what Shrinky Dinks are. Up until my post-party obsession with them, I assumed everyone knew what Shrinky Dinks were. It turns out that there's a 3 - 4 year window in either direction, so Shrinky Dinks are a pop culture carbon-dater for my generation.

Tiny little charms I made at Grace's party.

If you're not in the know, Shrinky Dinks are basically anything you make out of this magical plastic that shrinks up in the oven. When you buy it, it's thin and floppy (slightly thicker than a transparency), clear or translucent, and roughly letter-size. You draw or trace on it, color it, cut it out, and bake it. And like magic, it shrinks to about 30% of its previous size and becomes hard and thick, about the thickness of a nickel. You can use it to make magnets, pet tags, charms, keychains, buttons—anything you can dream up. I even traced a whole Gorey volume and made a tiny little book.

Shrinky Dinks are the perfect medium for a copycat. Think of it as permanent Silly Putty. You can trace your favorite comics, drawings, paper dolls—anything.

Here's how it works:

1. Draw or trace on plastic and color. Use Aleene's Shrink-It Opake or Shrinky Dinks Frosted Ruff n' Ready for colored pencils; either opaque or clear of either brand for markers or paint. Both opaque and clear are transparent before baking.

• For a 3-D effect (shown in the piggy—click him for a close-up), use black marker on the smooth side of opaque medium, then color it in on the rough side with colored pencils. The color shows through, but the sharp outline hovers over it.
  
  
• For supersaturated flat color (as with the chainsaw kitty—click her for a close-up), use both outlines and color on the rough side. This technique works best with the Aleene's media.
  
  
• If you're using markers, fill in colored areas first, then outline in black to prevent smears.
  
  
• Use a subject large enough for your purposes. See the before and after of the Daniel Clowes illustration, left, for a guideline. The 7" tracing shrank to 2 3/4".
  
  
• If you need some inspiration, there's a Klutz Shrinky Dinks book, filled with ideas, instructions, and things to trace. Six sheets of Shrinky Dinks Ruff n' Ready are bound right into the book.

2. Cut out shapes with sharp scissors. You don't have to be insanely precise. If you're cutting something out flush, you can color on the very edges for a finished look.

3. Punch holes before shrinking. You won't be able to punch them after they bake. Remember: the holes will shrink, too. If you have something (a necklace or keychain, for instance) you intend to thread through the hole, make a test punch on a scrap and shrink it first. Then you can enlarge the hole as necessary.

before... and after... The big pig on the left has curled up on itself, but it's still fixable. This one was baked pencil up, marker down. The marker seeped off the plastic and onto the pan, ruining both the pan and the Shrinky. Baking the opposite way would have prevented this mishap.

4. Bake according to package instructions. The two brands give different temperatures. I like performance of both opaque brands best between 300° and 325°.

• Bake with colored side up.
  
  
• If you use permanent marker to outline and pencils on the opposite side, bake it with the marker side up, or you'll have the mess pictured on your hands.
  
  
• Make sure to bake them on a clean cookie sheet; old oil or debris may stain your shrinkies.
  
  
• The plastic will curl up during baking. Wait until it flattens, and then give it another minute or so until it's about thickness of a nickel. If it ends up curling up and sticking to itself, don't freak out. Gently pull it apart while it's still warm, then bake it again until it flattens.
  
  
• If you jump the gun and your shrinkies look uneven or warped, don't worry: you can reshrink them. I just rebaked a few of my shrinky dinks from Grace's party, and that was a month ago.
  
  
• When you take them out, they may initially stick to the pan. When they pan cools, they'll come loose.

5. Finish them off. When they're cool, you can attach magnets, glue them onto things, make them into jewelry, whatever. Hooray!