Shrinky Dink Charms for Rainbow Loom Bracelets

This is the post wherein old-school kid craft meets new-school kid craft.  (Prepare to be amazed!)

One might wonder how such a fabulous collaboration came to be...

You see, it was all part of my quest to find a fun Valentine's Day gift for my daughter to give out in class.  (Preferably one that didn't involve high fructose corn syrup.)

We began with shrink film.  This is the stuff you use for shrinky dinks, but you can buy it on its own, without a shrinky dink kit, HERE.  

We traced some hearts onto the film using a sheet of hearts from the internet.

Then we colored them in.  (All of this was done with Sharpie.  I found the brush tip worked best.)

Then we punched some holes and popped them in the convection oven for three minutes at 300°.

Unfortunately, the charms turned out a little bigger than we had hoped...

...and some were just a hot mess!

So we tried again, this time with free-form hearts...

And we added initials...

And we baked them in the real oven  (also for three minutes at 300°).

And when they turned out okay we added a jump ring to each one...

...which connects the charm to the bracelet:

Then it was just a matter of adding a cute note:

Happy Valentine's Day!

Looking for more Rainbow Loom posts?  Click HERE.