I've been playing around with shrink plastic for years now and have found it to be a very wonderful product. Recently I sat down and tried several products with the shrink plastic for this product review. I have used the clear, opaque white and black shrink plastics.

The Basics:
1. Ink: to get a clear and crisp image which air dries prior to shrinking, Ranger 213 inks and Ranger Decor-it inks work great, as do Brilliance and Staz-On inkpads. I've been told that Zim ink and Document Ink work too, though I've not tried this.

2. It is usually best to sand the shrink plastic prior to stamping/coloring. Use a fine grit sandpaper, sand the entire sheet of shrink plastic one way, then turn and sand it the opposite way. This gives the shrink plastic "tooth" which grabs the color medium and helps it stay on the shrink plastic without beading up or falling off.

3. When cutting your shrink plastic, do keep in mind that it IS a stiff like plastic which will "break" if you don't cut it right. If you have tight corners and spaces, you'll have to make small individual cuts with your scissors to accommodate those edges and tight spaces. You CAN detail cut intricate images with your Exacto knife, though even for me, this is a very time consuming pain in the kiester. I don't do it often, if I can help it. Also, decorative edging scissors will cut the shrink plastic for a unique look.

4. Shrinking the plastic: I use a toaster over, though I've used my regular oven and my heat gun as well. I prefer my toaster oven. I set the oven to approximately 275 degrees (F) and make sure it's warmed up fully before shrinking. I pop my shrink plastic into the oven and let it fully shrink (shrinks the piece down 60% from original size) until it is lying flat. Then I remove the piece, flatten it with a piece of wood (one of my wood mounted stamps works great) and let it cool.

5. Adding embellishments to the finished piece can be accomplished in two ways. First, you can punch a hole prior to shrinking. Do this AFTER stamping and BEFORE you color it so as not to scratch off any color. Or, you can drill a hole in it after your shrink it. I do it both ways. If you are using a standard size jump ring, the 1/8 inch hole punch works great and is still large enough after shrinking to accommodate the jump ring.

Color mediums which work nicely and air dry on shrink plastic include but are not limited to:
1. any acrylic paint
2. Peerless watercolors
3. chalks
4. pastel pencils
5. colored pencils
6. Lumiere and Neopaque Acrylic paints

There are some products which work well with shrink plastic but will not dry until you are baking it (heat setting it). These products include, but are not limited to:
1. Ranger Heat Set Inks
2. Fresco inkpads
3. Memories inkpads
4. Fabrico inkpads
5. Brilliance inkpads

Alternative products which work well on shrink are, but not limited to:
1. glitters and glitter glues(after baking)
2. Krylon leafing pens
3. gold leafing

Adhesives for shrink plastic:
1. E600 glue (my preference for adhering pin backs, etc)
2. Aleene's thick designer tacky glue

Sealants for Shrink plastic:
1. any gloss varnish medium
2. Aleene's Laminate It
3. Beacon Liquid Laminate (my preference)

Things to keep in mind when using shrink plastic are, but not limited to:
1. shrink plastic will shrink about 60% during baking/shrinking

2. colors will appear lighter PRIOR to baking.

3. Since I prefer to use paints most often and don't like to sand, I stamp my image on the unsanded shrink plastic, spray it lightly with a matte sealant, then I paint. This gives my shrink plastic enough "tooth" to grab the paints. This won't work if you are using anything other than paints to color the shrink plastic.

4. if you use a color medium that is water soluble (like the peerless watercolors or possibly chalks), after you bake it, spray it lightly with a spray sealant, then you can brush any type of wet sealant over the top to create a more "glass like" appearance if you want.

5. When using the clear shrink plastic, remember that you have TWO sides you can work with. This will give you a very nice dimensional feel. Work foreground images on the front, and background stuff on the back.

Common problems and possible solutions:
1. the shrink plastic sticks to itself, or the baking surface, during the shrinking process. To avoid this, I generally use my anti static bag and pounce it all over the surface I will use to bake my shrink plastic on before I bake it.

2. after sanding the shrink plastic, when I stamp on it the ink feathers out. Generally this is caused when you use too large of a grit of sandpaper. Take a finer grit sandpaper (I use 1200 grit) and sand over your "feathered" stamped image (this will remove the ink so you can try it again)...be sure to sand one way, then sand the opposite way. Re-stamp your image.

3. I stamped my image with Ranger 213 and had some places that did not stamp well. What do I do? Two solutions: 1. You can sand it off with fine grit sandpaper and start over -or- 2. Use an extra fine tipped black sharpie pen and fill in/trace over the areas that didn't stamp well.

4. after my sealant dried, it dried cloudy. You applied too thick of a coat of sealant. Apply a relatively thin coat of sealant, let it dry. Then apply another coat, let dry. Repeat as many times as desired.

Other tips:
1. Ready Tex paints are my favorite medium to use on shrink plastic. The metallic colors, if applied to thickly, will "bunch up" while shrinking. It CAN be a nice effect, if that's what you are wanting. Just be sure to apply it lightly. If it streaks on the shrink plastic, don't worry too much because most likely after baking, you won't be able to see the streaks. When I want to sponge a background using the metallic colors, I will use a wedge make up sponge and this works nicely because it sponges a very thin coat of the metallic colored paint and it doesn't "bunch up" after it shrinks.

2. When using chalks, after you bake it gives you a very soft, almost suede-like look....very lovely.

3. when using the Fresco pads, they do not air dry on the shrink plastic. However, I found that if you sponge several light colors of the Fresco pads on opaque white shrink plastic, then stamp into the wet ink with a darker Fresco pad, you get a very pretty marbled appearance.