My latest shrink plastic creation is a Legend of Zelda rupee keychain.

I started with this rupee image from Zelda Universe. I printed out the image, traced the outline of three rupees onto a piece of clear Shrinky Dinks shrink plastic (unsanded), cut them out, and used a 1/8-inch hole punch to add holes to both ends of two rupees and only one end of the third rupee (this will be the last one of the chain).

Into the toaster oven they went, and out came some lovely shrunken rupees.

I painted the backside of each rupee with three coats of standard acrylic paint – one red, one green, and one blue. After these were dry I carefully scraped any excess paint off the sides of the rupees using a craft knife and off the front of the rupee using my fingernail. Be careful scraping the front as you can (and I did) accidentally scrape off some of the outline.

Once I was happy with the paint job, I added three coats of a gloss varnish and again scraped off the excess once they were dry.

The final touch was to colour the edges of the rupees with a black permanent marker to give them a finished look.

Three jump rings and a keyring later I had a finished keychain.

If I were doing this again, the only change I would try would be to colour the edges of the rupees with black marker before adding the varnish, and to varnish the edges as well as the back to seal in the marker. I’m finding mine let off a bit of colour if I run a finger along the edge of a rupee. However, trying to seal the edges without gunking up the front could be a challenge.

I’m enjoying playing with shrink plastic and trying different techniques for how to colour it. If you have a favourite method I would love to hear about it.