Papermania PMA 169206 A4 Plastic Retractable Foil

These plastic shrink sheets are great for making badges and jewelry. The final product is thick and sturdy; suitable for being worn daily. I recommend first drawing a ruler onto the sheet and baking it by itself, to gauge how much the plastic will shrink - it's a lot better than just eyeballing the proportions. The surface of these sheets is smooth, and so ordinary non-permanent markers that I use for permeable materials such as paper didn't work. Color pencils didn't work well either - they were too light and the pigment didn't stick to the smooth surface. A workaround for both of these that I successfully used is to roughen the area you want to work on with sandpaper. Then you can use both pencils and markers (but I found pencils to be more vibrant after baking). What works absolutely great without any sandpaper are acrylic markers and permanent markers. I preferred the acrylic markers since they have a wider range of colors to choose from, including metallic shades. How well they work might depend on the brand and formulation, though. I also tried acrylic paint, and it worked, but with caveats. DO NOT use acrylic paint liberally. If you do, the entire coating will shrivel up during baking, since its surface area will remain larger than that of the shrinking plastic, and the pigment will not be able to come any closer together. The acrylic coat will disconnect itself from the plastic, and you'll end up with what can be only termed hot garbage. A solution to that is to use acrylic paint in a transparent, thin layer, so that the pigment has space to come closer together as the plastic shrinks. That makes the acrylic paint stay on the plastic as it bakes. I strongly suggest to experiment with something easy/quick first, to see how it fares during baking, before diving into a more detailed project. The acrylics were a bit more vibrant than the pencils, and had a different texture. Both methods looked great, and it's worth it to try both and see which you enjoy more. I used a glossy acrylic coating on both the pencils and acrylic paint to make the pieces more resistant and seal the pigment onto the surface. I hope this helps someone avoid having to bin their hard work the way I had to at first :) Good luck.

This stuff is great! We had a ball with it at Christmas - spent ages making little decorations etc. Like all good craft items - it's not just for Christmas as it's great for personalising gifts, Easter decorations, making key rings etc etc. We used sharpies & a krylon leafing pen for adding gold accents. We coloured on the back as well, as it gives a layered effect if you use a pale shade on one side and a darker shade on the other. For lots of friends it brought back childhood memories & one person said they do something similar with crisp packets. If inspiration is lacking, you can place a photo/drawing underneath & trace the item, then colour & cut it out. Remember to punch a hole (e.g. rolson revolving hole punch) before baking as it's too brittle afterwards. Great fun to watch them as they furl and unfurl in the oven.

After reading a few reviews I was a little sceptical. I however, have found this product to be worth the money. It is easy to draw your design (I used sharpies) without the need for sanding. You can also use a hole punch through this easily before baking. All my pieces shrunk perfectly despite being of a larger size (a quarter or a third of an A4 page). After baking, the plastic remained very clear. I did however find some edges challenging to cut out without slightly cracking the surrounding plastic. Also, be careful when handling your cut out, as I accidentally snapped off part of my design. Overall this product was very worth the money. I highly recommend it.

I love this product for making embellishments for my cards and for making jewellery pieces. If you want to colour it, you have to use alcohol inks or permanent markers because it has a smooth surface, unlike some other shrink plastic, which has a rough surface to colour on. It shrinks to crystal clear and not opaque. Take note, however, that it is NOT 100 sheets as in the description, but only 10 sheets.

Bought for 8 year old daughter who has had great fun creating designs on the plastic with sharpie, punching holes in with a leather punch ( you could probably use a hole punch) and shrinking them in the oven for pendants, little people, animals etc. Does exactly what it should. It does curl in the oven, but leavi it in a little longer and it flattens out. If you take it out too soon it will stay curled.

A few sheets of A4 plastic with zero instructions. Far too expensive for what you get, in my opinion, and not easy to use compared to Shrinky Dinks. Each side is the same and just slides everywhere. I remember using Shrinky Dinks (a very long time ago) and they were fun, easy to use and had a rough side to colour easily. I tried to use acrylic pens with poor results as there is nothing for the paint to stick to so it just gets pushed around. There is no way to get the depth of colour that I wanted without waiting for it to dry and just put more coats on. Obviously permanent ink works well but there is no room for error if you do happen to make a mistake. If you are using this type of thing for the first time, I would suggest trying Shrinky Dinks.

What a fantastic product. I had seen some ideas of this been used for gift ideas (key rings) so I bought this my first attempt worked great.... I used baking paper on the tray so it didn't stick to metal tray I'm glad I did as one of the designs was over hanging and it stuck and went out of shape slightly. But they are brill when done and a nice cheap homemade gift.. we made personal fathers day key rings and some for end of teacher gifts.

Tout simplement génial. J'ai découvert ce principe il y a peu et c'est vraiment super. Acheté à la base pour ma fille de 8ans, je m'amuse autant voire plus qu'elle. Portes-clés, boucles d'oreilles, colliers, tout y passe!! Vraiment facile à utiliser : on dessine, on coupe, on cuit et le tour est joué. Ce papier n'est pas poncé donc j'ai dû acheter des marqueurs fins pour pouvoir dessiner correctement dessus, mais quel régal!!

Diese Folie finde ich toll. Ich habe einen kleinen elektrischen Pizzaofen. In dem gelingen die kleinen Kunstwerke perfekt. Man sollte sich nicht davon beirren lassen, dass die Folie sich beim Schrumpfen wölbt und verzieht. Es wäre nur gut, wenn in der Beschreibung stehen würde, dass man darauf nur mit CD Stiften malen kann. Und nicht mit Buntstiften. Die Ergebnisse sind toll!

It shrinks much more than other brands. Ive read about 10-40% shrinkage on other brands and this shrinks 80%, What you get from the oven is 1/5 of the size you drew. It takes alot of plastic to make just a few pieces. So its not as cheap as it seems.

My grandsons tried these tonite and none of them would shrink

La verdad es que llevo tiempo viendo el shrink plastic o plástico mágico en un montón de vídeos de youtube y quería probar cómo era. Me ha soprendido mucho, me encanta el resultado, aunque esperaba que encogiera algo menos. Encoge más o menos un 60% del tamaño original. Yo lijo la superficie de una de las caras del plástico con una lija de grano fino, para así poder pintar sobre ella con lápices de madera "watercolour", es importante que no sean los normales. Hago el diseño y lo recorto con cuidado dejando un márgen de unos 3 mm alrededor del dibujo (con cuidado porque el plástico se rompe al recortar, ojo). Aprovecho y si quiero hacer llavero hago un agujero en el dibujo con una perforadora normal. Mi horno calienta mucho y lo pongo a 140º. Calor arriba y abajo y sin ventilador. Lo precaliento 3-4 minutos y pongo en la bandeja papel de horno, porque si no se pega. Meto mi dibujo y en unos 15 segundos tengo el resultado (depende del tamaño del dibujo). Es importante dejar que encoja hasta que esté más o menos plano. Cuando veo que está listo lo saco y aprovechando el calor que aún tiene lo aplano con una espátula o algo plano. Por último para darle brillo uso resina o otro tipo de acabado más económico como usar un top coat ( esmalte PERMANENTE de uñas) y mi lámpara de UV para secarlo y queda un brillo precioso y duradero.