Faemom Crafts for Toddlers, Preschoolers and Kids

It’s hard to find new craft material.  Many of the sites use the same crafts, but that’s usually because the kids like them, though I have found sites quoting other sites by word.  It’s a little crazy.  One of those crafts that I’ve seen everywhere is cheap shrinky-dinks.

When I was kid I loved shinky-dinks.  I made tons.  I piled them into my dollhouse.  I haven’t seen the shrink-dink paper in years, so when I found this craft, I was very excited.  Then I was very disappointed.

You’re to take a clean Styrofoam meat tray like you get your meat on from the butcher section.  You make a shape, color it, cut it.  You pop your shape into the microwave.  And bam!  A shrink-dink is born. 

Or not so much.

First off, when they say clean, you’re to get a brand-new, never been used Styrofoam meat tray.  I decided to scrub and clean a meat tray to eat-off perfection.  When popped into the microwave, the enticing stench of burnt meat and plastic wafted through the air, making me gag.  My microwave stunk for days.

To make matters worse, all that pain gave me no gain.  I drew out a couple of diamonds and squares and had the boys color them.  I figured we’d start out simple, see how much the Styrofoam shrunk before we started making cool things like ice cream and dragons.  I figured we could use the shapes as jewels for our pirate treasure.  They shrunk quite a bit, but they curled and didn’t shrink uniformly, leaving me with unrecognizable curled plastic.  Awesome.

So if you’ve done this craft and it worked for you, please let me know where I went so terribly wrong.  If you haven’t done this craft, I say “beware.”