DIY Shrinky Dink Flag Bracelet

Last week our friends moved away; they were British expats, living in the US, and now moving to Canada. We wanted to give their daughter something small and special to take with her, so she would remember her time here. All over pinterest I have been seeing DIY shrinky-dinks: plastic that could draw on, and then heat in the oven to shrink down. We decided to commemorate the 3 flags as beads on a bracelet.

First, gather your materials:

• #6 plastic *
• Sharpies or other permanent markers
• foil
• elastic or string (for the bracelet)
• beads

*A note about the plastic: it must be #6, which it will say on the bottom of the plastic container somewhere. I got mine from the salad bar at our supermarket- #6 plastic is very thin and will shrink down and not warp like other plastics (trust me, another time we were trying to make shrinky-dinks and the other plastics warped and didn’t shrink!).

The kids can either freehand the flags, or simply tape the plastic on top of a “template” you can make by printing out the flags you need. I sized mine to be about 2 inches wide. Have the kids trace (or draw/color) the flags.

They can also make other beads of any shape: we made little worlds, fancy names, hearts, etc. Punch holes in the beads before you bake!!! The plastic will be too hard to make holes after it’s finished.
Lie the plastic designs on a single sheet of foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 2-3 minutes. Try not to open the oven door during the first minute or so, so the oven doesn’t lose its heat.

Once the beads have cooled down, string them together to make your bracelet. This is how ours turned out! Becky really liked the bracelet, my girls had a lot of fun doing the project- and they loved being able to give her something they had made themselves.