An Inchie challenge was issued amongst some of my blogging friends -- to see what we could come up with using Karen Lockhart's adorable new Spring Release stamps, Dottie Bunny and Organic Carrots.
I wanted to try using shrink plastic to see if I could create an Inchie and here's what I discovered. On the far right below is the Organic Carrot stamp and on the far left it is stamped and colored onto white shrink plastic:
Typically, in the past I've used StazOn ink with shrink plastic, but I knew I wanted to try coloring these images with Copic markers and knew the StazOn ink would smear. So I used Palette Noir ink. Now for impatient people like me, it was tough having to let the ink dry over night! But since it still wasn't dry around 1am when I was doing this project, I decided to just call it a night and try again the next morning! So the actual drying time might be a little less than over night.
Then I colored the images with Copic markers, still being a little careful not to touch very much of my stamped image. I'm pretty bad at math when it comes to calculating what 45% of a certain size will end up, shrunken -- those are what the instructions on the shrink plastic says your image will shrink to! So I just grabbed a Scalloped Square Spellbinders Nestabilities die and hoped it might be the right size for an inchie, after shrinking . . . and I lucked out!
The size I used here is the third smallest in the Large Set. That's the shrunk image in the center of the photo above, shown in the void of the shrink plastic where it had been. At the widest point, this die measures 2.25" and it shrunk to exactly 1-inch!
Continuing to play with shrink plastic, I came up with these little charms that I put on a bracelet for my girls:
I tried using the 1-inch shrunken square images from the first photo, but they just weren't as cute as these cut out ones! Still, Dottie shrunk to be 1-inch from extended paw to paw and the carrots are 1-inch tall! Don't forget to punch a hole in your shrink film before shrinking, so you have a hole to hang it by.
So there's another letter for you in my Inchie ABCs - S is for shrink plastic! If you haven't seen my other Inchie ideas, just click on this Inchie Art link or in the Categories section on the upper right sidebar of my blog and Ellen has some fabulous ABCs of Inchies on her blog as well!
Be sure to check out my buddies Cindy, Debbie, Michelle & Trudee to see what they came up with for this challenge and don't forget that Ellen is having a St. Patrick's Day sale in her online store tomorrow, Monday, March 17th for 17 hours -- 7am to midnight PST! You'll need the coupon code that comes in her new newsletter. If you haven't signed up for that yet, go to the bottom of her store's homepage and enter your email address and you'll receive the newsletter in time for the sale! Everything in Ellen's store is included on the sale, so now might be a good time to get one of those "Gotta Have It All" packages Ellen is famous for putting together. The sale also includes this month's Stamp of the Month kit which contains this cute little Dottie Bunny stamp I used above.
Also included in that slick new newsletter is a tutorial for soldiering an adorable Inchie bookmark. I hope to try out soldiering something soon but in the meantime, you should see this fabulous teapot bookmark Cindy made, by using those newsletter instructions!
Tomorrow and next week I'll be showing you the first projects I've made this year for the Spellbinders gallery website, so check back in!
