Butterfly necklace – a how to

This is a really simple how to, it’s so easy in fact that I got it right first time, which never happens! I actually saw a post about shrink plastic jewellery a while ago and although the end result looked great I was slightly put off by how difficult it sounded. I hadn’t even heard of shrink plastic then, nor did I own the required heat gun (to be honest as an amateur crafter I wasn’t even sure what a heat gun was, could a hair dryer be used? Or the boyfriend’s soldering iron, that gets pretty hot?). But I was determined not to let that stop me. After a quick google it turned out an oven would do the job of a heat gun and I found these shrink plastic sheets on amazon for under £2, bargain! So for that price I figured I might as well give it a go and I’m glad I did!

You will need:

Shrink plastic

Permanent maker

Coloured pencils

Scissors

Oven pre heated to 175C

Necklace chain

Firstly, decide on a design. I went for a butterfly and printed a pretty design from google images or if you’re feeling really creative design your own! Then trace your design onto the rough side of the plastic using a fine permanent pen. I then used a yellow colouring pencil on some of the design, but could leave it plain if you prefer.

Next cut round the design, if you will be adding it to jewellery hole punch a hole in the top of the plastic (when doing this I was worried that the hole would look too big, but it really does shrink!)

Then line a baking tray with tin foil and place in the centre of a pre heated oven at 175C. The packaging says to leave for a few minutes while it curls up - this only took seconds in my oven, so keep an eye on it! Wait until it lies flat then remove from oven and hold it flat under a book (the argos catalogue is always a favourite with me) for a few minutes.

If you compare with the image above you can see it really does shrink, to less than half its size! You can now attach to a necklace using pliers and a jump ring. I used an old necklace, removed a charm I didn’t like and replaced with the new shrink plastic one, easy!

I love the necklace and have already received a few compliments. What do you think?

I also created another butterfly to use as a decoration for a birthday card, which was very popular too.