Printable Shrink Plastic

Please meet my (could be yours ;) wearable friends!

I usually use shrink plastic and sharpie marker pens and hand draw each brooch. Then cut it out, bake it and varnish. 

So this bunny is hand drawn with markers.

Bunny Brooch

Recently I decided to try printable shrink plastic and please meet panda with the balloons and Monsieur Squirrel. 

Panda with Balloons

Squirrel

Being able to print drawings and not being limited by colours of markers excites me! 

These brooches have an amazing matt texture and watercolour effect (as original illustrations were drawn with watercolours).

They are varnished for protection with matt varnish.

After reading reviews and numerous blogs/threads/forums about shrink plastic I went for SHRINKJET INKJET PRINTER SHRINKLES by Wizard. 

It works really well, the texture is fantastic and even my rather cheap all round printer does a great job on it. Really easy to use and great outcome. 

I've tried to use the varnish I use for my hand drawn brooches but all colours leaked and I had to find another one. 

Many lovely people were kind enough to share their experience. Some people use ceramic sealers, some spray varnished. I bought Winsor and Newton professional satin varnish (for oil and acrylic paintings) and it works really well (I bought it from CASS art , they now have a promotion on large spray cans, so grab it while you can!)

Printable shrink plastic has a lovely velvety matt texture which I wanted to preserve so I used satin varnish which looks pretty much matt and keeps the texture but protects the inks from getting smudged.

What do you think? Yay or nay? :)

I can't wait to start designing new brooches/earrings and necklaces for printable shrinkies!

all photos by fantastic photographer Maksim