Valentine’s Day Shrinky Dinks Food Magnet

Nothing says love like food! You know you love someone whole heartedly when you love someone as much as your favorite foods. That being said, we love each other a lot! We decided to create our favorite foods into magnets with punny sayings…perfect for a little Valentine’s Day gift! To ourselves!

If you’ve never used Shrinky Dinks, you probably didn’t grow up in the the 80’s! Shrinky Dinks are plastic sheets that you can draw on with colored pencils, acrylic paint and permanent marker. You pop them in the oven and watch them shrink, curl up, then lay flat again. Once they’re cooled down, they’re 1/3 the original size and super durable.

For this project we used permanent markers and gave them a simple alcohol treatment to give it a watercolored effect. We are obsessed with the unique way they turned out!

What You’ll Need:

• Shrinky Dinks Bright White Sheets

• Alcohol-Based Markers 

• Rubbing Alcohol 

• Magnets

• Paint Brush

• Small Dish

• Scissors 

• Oven

• Glue Gun

How To:

1. Enlarge and print out food clip art  – On your computer or phone enlarge an image of your favorite food or image of your choice. Add a “punny” saying that goes along with the image and print them out. Shrinkable plastic will shrink down to ⅓ the size after baked.

2. Color the image – Lay plastic sheet on top of the printed image. Roughly color in the image with vibrant alcohol-based permanent markers.

3. Paint on alcohol – Add a small amount of rubbing alcohol into a small dish. Slowly paint over the marker to create a water colored effect.

4. Trace the outline and the saying – Once the alcohol is completely dry, trace the outline, the phrase and any additional detail with a black permanent marker. 

5. Cut out – Cut out closely to the outline and around the phrase. 

6. Bake – Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a regular cookie sheet with parchment paper. Place Shrinky Dinks on cookie sheet, colored-side up leaving space between the pieces so they don’t overlap. Put the cookie sheet in the preheated oven, and bake the Shrinky Dinks for 1 to 3 minutes. Watch them as they bake; the shapes will first soften and curl up at the edges, and then settle back down as they shrink. Once the pieces flatten out again, let them bake for another 30 seconds. Remove the cookie sheet from the oven, and carefully lift off lining with your Shrinky Dinks. Press each shape with a spoon for 30 seconds, until they are cool enough to handle.

7. Glue on a magnet – Once cool, hot glue a small magnet on the back. 

We made this project on HGTV Handmade- check out the video below for two other Shrinky Dink Projects including how to make your own shrinkable plastic using take-out containers!