So, since Newt has made so many wonderful friends around the globe, I wanted to make some of them a small token of his appreciation (like a key fob, or such), and to mark another year of Hope for our liver shunt cats.
Never mind the fact that I am:
- In the middle of a humongous work project (36 MB and counting);
- Just double-booked myself with a second, time-sensitive contract;
- Wanting to sew five pet beds, a pair of pajama bottoms, a superman cape for a cat, and a slip cover for The Dog’s chair;
- Needing to crochet and wash a swatch before crocheting two towel toppers;
- Wanting to knit two stuffed animals;
- Wanting to make 10 sets of stitch markers, and,
- Trying desperately to clear out and donate much of my craft inventory,
I have become obsessed with making my own free, Shrinky Dinks from recycled #6 plastic containers! Perfect way to re-use all those empty containers from the salad bar where we have splurged and gotten Newt’s bits of fresh broccoli and mini veggie assortments.
Was I satisfied with my quick experiment with a pen, doodles on a piece of plastic, and three minutes with the stove last night? Could I simply be free, and indulge in a burst of spur-of-the-moment creativity?
All together now, say it with me, “Noooooooooooooooooooooo!“
Once again, we had the ongoing Battle of the Brains – Right vs. Left. A life-long 50/50 split down the middle, where my logical and analytic side fights for dominance with the random and intuitive side.
I had to:
- Spend hours looking at various sites for techniques while making detailed notes on the process;
- Spend more time oohing and ahhing over images of finished projects, seeing that others had accomplished what I was envisioning;
- Bemoan all of Newt’s salad bar containers that we’ve recycled the last two years;
- Run a mathematical computation (approximate number of containers per week x average number of weeks; variable z includes container size) to estimate how many trinkets I could have made with those recycled bits;
- Re-organize my Sharpie inventory (by tip size, and colour, of course!);
- Draw images on several canvas bags and bits of cardboard for design inspiration;
- Colour those images and determine approximate final size of completed objects, factoring in approximate shrink percentages (variable includes oven temperature);
- Retrieve my coloured pencils from the “to donate” box, and re-sharpen all of them to lovely crisp points:
- Doodle designs on card blanks with the lovely, freshly-sharpened, coloured pencils;
- Find out that Shrink Film is available so you can actually print things from your computer!
- Generate a spreadsheet comparing prices and online sources on various types of printable film (variable includes shipping costs);
- Decide that I really should see if I can find a small toaster oven at the thrift store so I can heat them up outside, so the fumes won’t adversely affect Newt;
- Realize that I can probably use my gift basket heat gun to shrink them outside;
- Spend even more time comparing different die-cutting options, because it would be soooo much faster and tidier to cut them with a machine instead of by hand (again with the spreadsheets!);
- Retrieve my hole punches from the “to donate” box;
- Use the punches on the previously doodles cards to make them even more artistic;
- Coordinate ribbons for finishing touches on the cards;
- Visually inspect ribbon rolls for potential use as hangers on the as-yet, still un-started tokens;
- Re-organize ribbon inventory (by ascending widths – colour coded, of course);
- Realize that the old CD rack will make an excellent free-standing ribbon spool holder;
- Roughly compute the quantity of ribbon against the available surface area of the rack to determine size adequacy;
- Fight the overwhelming urge to immediately hack that rack so the ribbon can be taken out of bins and be more readily available to use on the tokens (plus it will look sooooo pretty!);
- Realize that the method of dissecting the plastic is still undetermined, so, check out various types of larger hole punches to achieve the same results as a die cutting system, only cheaper (again, again with the spreadsheets!); and then,
- Check Black Friday ads for any of the machine systems, punches and Shrink Films to be on sale (detailed list, of course, showing cost, any additional coupons, item location, sale times, and, travel time between locations).
::sigh:: I’m already exhausted and I haven’t even started ! LOL
I really better get back to WORK so I can afford all the tools I wanna buy for my “free” Shrinky Dinks!