I’ve been sorting through our attic, opening boxes that have been sealed for decades (yes literally) and unearthing all sorts of treasures. Some of it gets resealed and put back, some discarded, and a rare few things were so curious I brought them down for a closer look.
This past weekend I found ‘shrinkydink’ plastic! It wasn’t called that of course, but that’s what it was. I had to try it!
The idea is you draw directly onto the plastic then heat it in an oven so it shrinks. Sounds boring but it’s strangely amusing, and I couldn’t wait to see how old Grimace turned out! In the oven he went, and in an astonishingly short time he shrunk:
Here’s a before/after showing the scale:
Incredible! A quick glance will show the shrinking isn’t equal in both dimensions, so old mate Grimace here became squatter after he shrunk. For perfect shrinkydinks one would have to take this into consideration of course. I didn’t 🙂
Of course I made more, taking advantage of the transparent plastic to trace:
And soon enough all the usual suspects had been immortalized in ‘dink’ form:
Here’s an action shot captured mid-shrink, showing how they curl up as they miniaturize:
At this point I could insert a nostalgic memory of as a youth shrinking chip bags in the oven (since they were briefly manufactured using this type of plastic) or even how the Australian mint almost released shrinkable currency when they transitioned into plastic… but I’ll leave such things to the commenters 🙂
Anyway I’ve got loads more of this plastic. Want a shrinkydink of your own? Put in a request and I’ll make you one!
