My Boys Bracelet for the eCraft Design Team

 

Bake and Shrink from PrintOnIt.com is some pretty cool stuff.  I love that I can print anything that I want on it!  One day, I was strolling around Michaels with a coupon burning in my pocket and I made my way into the jewelry aisle.  There I found this cuff bracelet.

All of a sudden, I was struck with the idea for this project.  It wasn’t until I was at the register that I realized that little beauty was on sale!  Oh well, I will save the coupon for another day because I really wanted to get home and make this idea.

 

Now in the Bake and Shrink instructions, they said that whatever you cut will shrink to approximately 1/4 of it’s original size.  I was confused by this because the last time I made something with this, I did not think that they got that small, so I figured a little experimentation was in order.  First I printed out a picture of my boys that I took last Thanksgiving onto the Bake & Shrink.  Then using the Print & Cut Hinge Method, I cut a large circle from the picture. This circle was large enough that if it did shrink to 1/4 of it’s size, it would fit in the bracelet. I placed this in the oven and watched it shrink.  I was thinking of making a video on this, but my oven door is dirty and I was too anxious to stop to clean it…sorry!

 

Once it baked, I knew right away that it would not fit in my bracelet …but it also provided me with the information that I needed to get the right measurement.  Based on the sizes, I figured that it shrinks to approximately 40% of it’s original size.  So out came the calculator and some straining to remember math that I learned in high school and eventually I figured out what size my circle needed to be before baking.  So I printed out another Bake and Shrink sheet with a picture of my boys and again used the Print & Cut Hinge Method to cut my circle.  Back to the oven…

 

With baited breath I watched and once the shrinking was done and I took it out of the oven, I stood there in shock.  Are my eyes deceiving me or did I do my math right???  This circle was almost perfect.  With just a little sanding on one side, the circle fit perfectly into my bracelet.  Now, for the next step…since Bake and Shrink is white and it is thicker than the indentation in my cuff bracelet, that means that I would see a ring of white.  I decided that I really wanted this edge to be black, so I took out my black Copic and carefully colored the edge and that was all it took to change the color.

The only thing left was to take some Glossy Accents and adhere the Bake and Shrink into the bracelet and then prop it up to dry.  Now, I can take my boys with me everywhere and show them off!

Oh, and that piece that was too big for the bracelet, well with a little more Glossy Accents and a magnet, I made a refrigerator magnet.

Have a great week everyone!!!