making little pins

sometimes i, jo, have a craving for something tiny and adorable and wearable... and so i make pins to wear with t shirts, flannels, and dresses. it started about a year ago, when i made a teeny tiny pink tape, as well as an eye... and it continues today with a new batch of cuties! they're super easy to make... all you need is shrinky dink plastic and an oven, markers/colored pencils, pin backs, glue, a piece of cardboard, and scissors!

first off, draw your design on your shrink plastic. you can draw from your mind, or trace things you love with a pencil. for colors, if you use permanent marker on the shiny side, it will create a 3D effect when finished. otherwise, use markers and/or pencils on the rough side... too much ink on the shiny side will stick to the cardboard in the oven and it might get ruined. and always remember!: draw your design three times the size you want it to be finished! that's how much it will shrink in the oven. remember to take your bar pins into consideration... you want to make sure that as shrunken pin fronts, they will cover the pin backs.

hurray! have your designs? perfect. cut them out. remember that they might look big, but they will shrink down to a third of their current size.

lay your plastics rough side up/shiny side down on a piece of cardboard. put the cardboard on a cookie sheet and slide it in the oven. turn it to 325 degrees fahrenheit. they will remain flat in the oven for a few moments and then they will begin to curl. once they have returned to a flat state, now smaller and thicker, take them out! press them with a flat glass container to make sure they are flat. aw!! so tiny!! cute!

look how small they turn out! perfect for lil pins. the colors also darken.
open up your pins and add some glue (i used tacky glue) to the backs. press them to the shrinky dink and let them dry for several hours. when the glue is dry and clear, your pins are ready to wear!

and there you have it! a cute little collection of easy to wear pins!
hope you like this little project and hopefully get some cute new accessories out of it! let us know if you make any... i'd love to hear about what you did!!
xxx,
jo