DIY Shrinky Dink Buttons

It’s been really neat learning about all the incredible stuff you can do with shrink plastic, but one of my very favorite ideas is making your own buttons.  They can actually be sewn onto clothing and will hold up quite nicely.  An awesome way to add personality to your clothes or accessories or to take your handmade sewing projects to the next DIY level!

What you need to make shrinky dink buttons:

• Shrink plastic (frosted)
• 1 1/2″ circle punch (I used a 2″ punch but think 1 1/2″ would work better)
• Permanent markers
• Hole punch
• Baking sheet
• Parchment paper or cut up paper bag

The basic craft supplies needed for DIY buttons.

Use your circle punch to create 1 1/2″ circles.

You can make several buttons out of one sheet of shrink plastic.

To get the button holes even, punch a circle from a piece of construction paper. Fold in half and then in half again. Unfold once and punch a hole on the line. When you open it up, you will have two corresponding button holes.

Draw whatever image you want on the frosted side of your buttons. If you use letters, they need to be written backward to show up properly when you’re done.

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If you’re not such a good artist (as you can tell from the photo above, I’m not), you might want to check out the awesome free templates that are available on Scissors.Paper.Wok.  So very cool.

Place them on the parchment paper/paper bag on a cookie sheet, and bake according to the directions on the shrink plastic package.

You may need to flatten your Shrinky Dink buttons with a spatula when they come out of the oven.

What I Learned the Hard Way:  Like I said, I would use a 1 1/2″ punch next time, as I think they would shrink more uniformly than mine did.