Make a Shrink Plastic Fairy Charm

This whimsical fairy charm has been made from shrink plastic. The different parts of the fairy have been joined together with wire ring and this gives the fairy 'joints' and movement. I used a stamp set that includes separate fairy elements to make this charm (see below for details). Sets of doll elements would also work. If you don't have a suitable set of stamps then a single image of a fairy or doll could be used to create a similar effect. Try stamping the image onto shrink plastic and cutting out individual parts. Use different stamps and mix and match parts to create your own unique characters.

The finished charm would look great as a handbag charm or phone charm, however they would also make cute pins or pendants. The shrink plastic fairies could also be used as an embellishment for a card.

Materials

• Shrink plastic and heat source (refer to manufacturers instructions)
• Rubber stamps and inks
• Hole punch, scissors and basic craft supplies
• Craft wire (I used .3mm)

Note about inks - different types of inks give varying results when working with shrink plastic. Slow drying inks, such as pigment inks, sometimes will not dry, even when heated and some inks may 'bleed' on certain types of shrink plastic. It is therefore a good idea to make a sample charm to see how the ink reacts. I get consistently good results with StazOn ink.

Instructions

1. Stamp the images onto a sheet of shrink plastic. Cut the images from the shrink plastic and color them in as required.
2. Punch a hole into each element of the charm in the appropriate place so that they can be linked together
3. Shrink the plastic in accordance with the manufacturers instructions. See How to Make Shrink Plastic Charms for more information about working with shrink plastic.
4. Use craft wire to join the different elements of the fairy together. I did this by simply threading the wire through the holes and forming it into a ring or loop. In the example shown, the tip of the crown was too thin for a hole, so I wound the craft wire around the top of the crown and fastened this in place with a dot of glue.

Stamp Information

I used the Fairy Nuff set of stamps from Blonde Moments. Many companies sell art doll rubber stamps that would work well. These include rubber stamping companies such as Stampington, Alpha Stamps and the Enchanted Gallery.