Ingredients -
Decorative Diamond rubber stamp
Translucent shrink plastic
Black archival ink (I used ancient page)
Acrylic paints
Paint brushes
Cheap make up sponges
Glitter glue
Acrylic matt glaze (optional)
Paper hole punch
Heat gun
Wooden barbecue stick
Using one colour
1. Sand your shrink plastic -this helps the paint to marry with the plastic.
Add your paint to the plastic using your sponges - add them quite lightly as the colours will intensify once it has shrunk down.
Stamp your image matching up the center of the diamond - as close as you can. It doesn't matter if there is a gap in between the stamped images.
2. Cut out the star close to the outline.
Punch a hole for the ribbon at one of the points - I used a paper hole punch
3. Shrink down the plastic using your heat gun - use the barbecue stick to stop the plastic from flying off the desk and to prevent it from sticking to itself. Add some glitter - I used Stickles crystal ice
Using multiple colours
For my second decoration I painted the design on the diamond with 3 different coloured acrylic paints. I stamped the image on the same piece of shrink plastic to which I'd used for the above decoration.
As above the plastic has been cut out, hole punched and shrunk down. I've used some acrylic paint varnish/matt glaze to protect the paint. Painted on acrylic paint when heated and shrunk will create a texture on the plastic - you can see some of it on this image before I added the glaze/varnish.
I hope you enjoy the tutorial and will have a go at making some bespoke decorations for your trees or to even hang around the house or even in your window - if you use the clear shrink plastic you can make them look like stain glass/acrylic stars.
Have fun and enjoy experimenting with shrink plastic.
Anita
