My kids and I were telling my dad how we had made a Mr. Potato Head Shrinky Dink the other day. He had never heard of Shrinky Dinks. What?! These things have been around forever! Plus, they are the coolest thing since sliced bread (which is a saying likely older than Shrinky Dinks!)
My kids are little and don’t do a whole lot more than scribble but they still enjoyed the process of making a Shrinky Dink with me. If YOU don’t know what a Shrinky Dink is, keep reading because they really are cool and super fun to make. 
Using a permanent marker, I traced an image of Mr. Potato Head that I had from a coloring book onto a sheet of Shrinky Dink Frosted Rough & Ready. 
On the rough side, I used colored pencils to color my image. Underneath I wrote my son’s name so we could use it as a tag for his backpack. Since the rough side of the paper is the “wrong” side, technically I should have actually written his name backwards. Then I cut Mr. Potato head out with a decent sized border. You can cut it out however you want- a large circle, square, triangle…Then I used a hole punch in the top so I would be able to run some string through it to tie to Jackson’s backpack.
Now for the fun part! I placed our cutout on a paper lunch sack and set it on a cookie sheet. Then I placed it into a preheated oven and watched as Mr. Potato head shrunk down! Once he stopped shrinking, we counted to 30 and removed the pan from the oven. Now our Mr. Potato head wasn’t thin as paper but a thick plastic, brightly colored hang tag:
What I love most about Shrinky Dinks is their allowance for creativity. It’s endless!! You can create whatever you can imagine then turn it into a bracelet, earrings, luggage tags, gift tags, sun catchers, key chains and more!
The very first Shrinky Dinks were sold on October 17, 1973 at Brookfield Square Shopping Mall in Brookfield Wisconsin. Since then there has been over 250 different Shrinky Dinks kits created and marketed.
Color or create your creation, cut it out with scissors then bake it on a cookie sheet in your oven for two minutes. Watch as your creation shrinks to 44% of it’s original size and becomes 9 times thicker!
This is such a fun activity for kids that parents will find themselves enjoying too! Let your imagination run wild- the design options are limitless!
Fun fact: The Shrinky Dinks inventor started her business after the kids in her sons cub scout den enjoyed a craft activity that she did with them as the Den Mother…38 years later, she’s still running the business!
If you haven’t tried Shrinky Dinks, what are you waiting for? They’re fun for everyone!
A complimentary product/service was provided for this review, however, all opinions expressed are our own. We were not compensated in any other way. See Mommies With Cents disclosure policy for more details.