shrinking plastic

[eshqi.livejournal.com]

i made some plastic playing card keychains:

royal flush:

cowboys:

deuces:

these cards were made using inkjet printer-friendly shrinky dink paper. originally i was just going to make a couple of "Jack-Four" cards as a little inside poker joke, but they came out so nicely that i made a few more sets of other interesting poker hands. there's something really cool about the feel of these little hard plastic cards shuffling on a chain together.

i scanned cards from a real deck, cleaned up the images in PhotoShop and then printed them out (in reverse) on the plastic. they don't mention this in the instructions, but the curling/sticking problems can be avoided by placing the plastic in the oven with the "rough" side up (that's the side that's printed on which has the backwards image). the silver bead chains can be purchased in bulk from any hardware store, and they are easy to cut using wire-cutters or bending with a pair of plyers.

for even more fun, i tried to use recyclable plastic instead. it's not printer-friendly, but shrinking it is more fun than dumping it in the trash or recycle bin.

step 1:
Mighty-O vegan mini-donut containers are #6 plastic. yum!



step 2:
preheated toaster oven to 375F. ate a bunch of mini-donuts, washed the plastic container and cut bottom out.



step 3:
wrote on plastic with a Sharpie. used a hole-punch for the keychain hole.



step 4:
stuck it in the oven.



step 5:
yay, it's a cool piece of shrunken hard plastic!