Tag Archives: resin

Shrinky Dinks

I’ve been playing around with Shrinky Dinks for about 4 years now after learning about them in a Hands On Brisbane class. Hands On Brisbane is my “day job” and one of the perks is learning all sorts of crafts (I have to be able to assist the facilitators).

I started making Your Organ Grinder pieces from Shrinkies soon after. I use an old refurbished Canon printer at the moment. Oh and FYI, you can’t use the ink that is made for archival printing, or the high quality art printing. Just the regular printing ink.

If you want to learn how to make your own Shrinkies you can check out the process I use for shrinking and adding doming resin in my instructable here. If you are in Brisbane I sometimes teach Shrinkie Dinks workshops and Resin workshops at Hands On Brisbane so join our mailing list, here.

Images above are Uterus Earrings, Dodo Earrings, Tapeworm Brooches and Dodo Brooches all made using the shrinky dink with doming resin technique.

Resin Cicada

Whenever I work with resin I always end up with a little bit spare so I decided to coat this cicada shell. I slathered it in resin all over and then rolled it over every 15 mins for about 1.5 hours. After that I hung the guy up on a toothpick and as the resin slowly dripped off I picked it up and kept dripping it on. After about 2-3 hours the resin was getting very thick so I left the cicada to cure.

I am impressed with how the cicada has turned out as I really had no clue what I was doing. It is very hard and sturdy. I think I could do a second coat of resin to get this even sturdier and wear as a necklace, or add a brooch pin.

The resin I used was Castin’ Craft from Over the Rainbow.

Hands On Brisbane-Workshops

Hands On Brisbane is a workshop program based in Brisbane, Australia that aims to deliver affordable art, craft and design workshops. We’ve just launched the Spring workshop program, including a few new workshops.

Hands On Brisbane is my “day job,” although I sometimes wonder how you choose which is the main job and which the extra. Hands On Brisbane brings me better pay than my own business, Your Organ Grinder, but I spend more time on Your Organ Grinder, so which is which? Well anyways, Hands On is one of the things I do.

This term I am taking 7 workshops, that includes 2 terrarium workshops and 2 screen printing ones, plus a resin workshop, shrinky dinks and polymer clay. I’ve been teaching Terrariums for ages and probably showed over 150 people how to put together a Terrarium. My favourite workshop is definitely Shrinky Dinks, the participants get so excited about the shrinking plastic and want to make more and more. Every time every person is thrilled with the results.

If you are in Brisbane and like to learn new skills drop by the website http://handsonbrisbane.com/ and check us out!