Friday 21 March 2014

Fox Frenzy!

Recently I have been paying attention to my Etsy store and adding some new shrink plastic jewellery. I have fallen in love with this process and it gives me such a thrill seeing my drawings turned into jewellery. I have talked about this before but I thought I would revisit it.

Shrink plastic is a fantastic process! I start every piece by drawing first with my fine-liners markers. Here is my little owl illustration which I thought would be ideal for jewellery.

When I am happy I scan the image into my computer and then it is printed onto an A4 sheet of special plastic. Next I cut it out before placing into an oven. The plastic is then baked at a very high temperature for only two minutes. During this process the design shrinks to approximately 40% of its size. Once removed from the oven it hardens quickly as it cools. The piece can then be finished, hand coloured and then varnished or sealed. The shrink plastic that I use has a slightly textured surface which I like as it is quite tactile.



When I have a few pieces ready I start to turn them into jewellery. I have made lots of brooches, rings and necklaces but this week decided to try out earrings and key rings. I used my foxy illustrations as these have proved very popular. I now have lots of foxy items but quite frankly (I feel) you can never have enough fox themed pieces! Anyway here is a peek at what they turned out like.



...and my owl drawing? I turned him into a brooch!


Feel free to visit my Etsy store or leave a comment below!


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