What’s a Shrinky Dink? It’s a thin sheet of flexible plastic substance that when you put in the oven contracts in size, expands in thickness and hardens. You used to have to draw and create your own artwork on the original Shrinky Dinks, but now they’ve brought it out suitable for inkject printers and this now offers an amazingly simple and creative way to make embellishments of any shape, color and size.

For the little flowers and leaves on this art quilt, I designed the colors in photoshop then used the “cookie cutter” tool to create the shapes. I then printed them out on my printer, let them dry, then cut them out and zapped them with my heat gun.

The finished size is about 1/3 of the original and it expands in thickness approx 9 times so the finished pieces are nice and thick.

Before the pieces cooled, for the leaves I twisted the ends a little to give them some movement, and the flowers I pressed in the middle with the end of a pencil to form a slight bowl shape. I used a bead reamer to make the small holes before I heated them, and once they had been heated and cooled, I then colored the edges with a metallic gold painters pen. To seal the color, spray with an acrylic sealer.

This is a fabulous way to make your own embellishments and it’s so easy and fun!

This tutorial will demonstrate how to make a three dimensional leaf using two layers of fabric fused together with fusible webbing.

Supplies

• Small scraps of leaf-colored fabric
• Thread to coordinate with the color of your fabric
• Fusible webbing
• Stabilizer: wash-away or heat-away
• Medium point or fine point Sharpie

Directions

• Draw a leaf shape on a piece of copy paper or cardboard to use as a template.



• Trace the outline onto your fabric with a Sharpie.



• Iron a piece of fusible web to the back of the design and fuse another layer of fabric to it.



• Set your machine to free motion straight stitch and stitch a center vein and side veins.



• Set your machine for narrow free motion zigzag and satin stitch a center vein.



• Free motion satin stitch around the outer edge of leaf following the marked design.



• Cut around the edge of the leaf, being careful not to cut the stitching.



• Set up your machine with a standard foot, feed dogs up and satin stitch slightly wider than the
  previous zigzag. Lay a piece of stabilizer under the leaf and satin stitch around the edge.



• Remove the stabilizer according the manufacturer’s directions.

Variations

• For a leaf with a soft edge, instead of fusing two layers of fabric together, insert one layer of fabric into a hand embroidery hoop and follow the instructions, omitting step 3.



• For a leaf that will hold it’s shape, place a piece of stabilizer under the leaf and zigzag a piece of thin craft wire into the outer edge of the leaf. A cording foot or open toed foot with feed dogs up works best for this. Alternatively, you could also stitch the craft wire down the center vein which would leave the edges of the leaf free.



• Vary the size, shape, fabric and design on your leaves for added interest.