Happiness is Scrappy: Tutorial⎪Honey, I Shrunk The Stamps! *Evalicious*

Hello there! Some of you may have seen me posted on Instagram about me making those little charms using Shop Evalicious stamp sets and shrink plastics. So today I am going to walk you through my process of making these cute little charms and also ideas on how I use them on my planner and Midori Traveler Notebook.

So to shrink your stamps (no pun intended) you would need these:
1. Shrink plastics (I have them in white and clear, got them from Art Friend Singapore)
2. Stamp Sets (I used this, this and this) and Acrylic block
3. Inks (My favourite is Staz On here, and I will explain further later)
4. Heat Gun / Oven to bake the plastics
5. Scissors
6. Circle Punch
7. Crop-a-dile
8. Paints and Markers

Firstly, if your shrink plastic sheet is smooth, you would sand one of the smooth side so that the texture will hold the ink / colouring. My plastic sheets come with one smooth and one texture side, so I didn't have to sand the plastic sheet at all.

Punch various sizes of circles using circle punch - I used 1', 1 3/8' and 2' here.

And here are the inks I tried and I like Staz On the best.

P.S. My Staz On is drying up as I have had it 5 years ago, so it doesn't ink well. But thats okay, we can go over it with a sharpie or Zig marker. But this step is rely optional as the ink will turn out darker once shrunk.

From left to right: Staz On, Ranger Archival Ink, Brilliance, VersaFine, Verscolor and Prima Resist Chalk Edger.

Close-ups of the stamped image before I heat it up:

Staz On, Versacolor and Prima doesn't bleed but the rest bleed, especially Ranger Archival Ink (although it doesn't show here)

Punch a small hole using your crop-a-file before heat up the plastics or send them to the oven. You gotta be careful not touching the stamped image else you would have smudge the inks like mine show below.

I placed mine into a baking tin that I got from Daiso and heat it up with heat gun. I seriously couldn't imagine my life without my heat gun. It might look wonky in the process but don't worry, just keep calm and keep heating it up. You can use a tweeter or craft stick to hold the plastic while heating up. Once done, use something to flatten the plastic while it is still warm. I use a glass jar tand it works well in flattening the plastic.

And here's the result.

Staz On: It doesn't smear before / after we heat it up.
Ranger: It bleed and smear badly, even after we heat set the ink.
Brilliance: It smears a little before heating it up. Once heat up, it doesn't smear and it is perfect.
VersaFine: It smears a little before heating it up. Once heat up, it doesn't smear and it is perfect.
Prima: It doesn't smear before / after we heat it up.
Versacolor: It smear badly before and after we heat up the plastic. But after heat up, you can actually clean up the smudges with wet wipes. The colour will not be as vibrant as we normally stamp on paper.

I re-stamped all the images with thee three inks that smudge / smear/

And here's the end result! I love how tiny this little charm is! It shrunk from 2 inch circle to 3/4 inch circle.

The stamped image with versacolor looks perfect after we clean it up with wet wipes.

And now, move on to the advanced part: create a water-colour effect / ombre colour effect on your shrink plastic. I use Tim Holtz Distress Stains and Distress Paints. I prefer Distress Paints over Distress Stains as the paint is permanent once its dry on the plastic and doesn't react to water much.

I draw paint stokes using the mediums below and quickly add water to the paint strokes to make the water less opaque. You gotta work quickly s the Distress Paints dry up real fast.

Then wipe away all the excess colours. Do not worry if the paint strokes look really pale here. Once the plastic shrink, it will look more vibrant.

Stamp and cut the image. Remember to punch hole before heat up the plastic. And use 3/16' hole punch (not 1/8') else the hole might turn out too small.