Shrinking Hearts: a guest design post at Try it on Tuesday

I was thrilled and honored to be asked by Avril (Mrs B) and Yvonne (Meggymay) to be the guest designer of their latest theme.

Recycling is possibly my favorite of all topics.  Don't get me started, because I'm an Earth Day baby.
Therefore, it was easy to say I'd LOVE to be a guest designer for this latest challenge.

Let's start with a short tutorial. From back left clockwise:
Heat tool
Sharpies, or other PERMANENT ink pen, colors of your choice
Cardboard box (or small wooden block) to press the heated piece flat
#6 Plastic
Scissors
Heart template cut from a used cracker box

How do you know you have #6 plastic?  It will show you on the plastic itself.   You can ONLY use #6 plastic for this project.  No other number will work.  That's because today we are going to shrink this plastic.

Every plastic container or bottle has a recycling symbol.  The symbol is a number, ranging from 1 to 7, within the recycle triangle as shown in the photo.  #6 is polystyrene or styrofoam, thus the initials PS.  It is notorious for being difficult to recycle, and therefore, not especially good for the environment.   Most recycling programs won’t accept it, so using it in our art helps us find other ways to help the environment.  You will find it used in egg cartons, meat and veggie trays, and holding baked goods.  Although I try to avoid ALL plastic as much as possible, sometimes it's just not possible.

In keeping with my recycling efforts, I cut a template from a cracker box.

It took awhile, but I finally found a way to get two hearts from a single sheet of #6 plastic.  Please note, I used two alcohol inks to color this piece.

Next, I cut two hearts using the template I had previously created.

I did the same with a piece of clear plastic.  It's hard to see the lines of the green pencil I traced on the plastic.  After all that fiddling and rotating, I was only able to get four hearts from the plastic containers I had available.

I used my black Sharpie to create Xs and Os.  Originally, I only drew one line and in the end wished I had stopped with that single line.  However, Sharpies use PERMANENT ink, so once it's on the plastic, there's no way to remove it.  Perhaps, unlike me, you might consider what you will write on your heart before you commit Sharpie to plastic.

This shows the before and after of a heart that has been shrunk and one that is still in its original state.  Unlike real shrink plastic, #6 plastic has a tendency to shrink more in one direction than the other.  Depending on where you cut your heart, you might get a more deformed or more believable heart.

Once I shrunk the plastic, I used the empty box to flatten it.  More on that later.

For my second colored heart, I wanted something a bit simpler.

When I tried to flatten it using the cardboard box after it had shrunk, I was unable to see the heart and was unable to flatten it properly.  As you can see, a portion of it flipped onto itself.  That's why I recommend using a small wooden block, which is more stable and easier for you to see where the plastic is on your table.

For the clear plastic pieces, I chose my red Sharpie.

Again, the cardboard box failed me and I wasn't able to flatten the melted plastic properly.

As I explained before, you can see that the hearts shrunk in different ways depending on the position of the plastic when it was cut.

As an aside, I learned something vital and valuable when I shrunk these hearts.  In the past, I have been able to reheat the plastic and straighten the bent or deformed shrunken object.  You can usually heat the plastic from the reverse side to straighten it.  That was not the case this time.  This time, I overworked the plastic red love heart to the point where it hardened so hard, it had no more "shrink" left. In fact, it actually turned brittle.  No amount of heat would flatten or straighten it.  It seems I did the same with all the hearts.  I was just going to have to live with the deformities, since I had no more shrink plastic large enough to create more hearts.

To demonstrate how these hearts could be used in mixed media, I created this journal page.  The sentiment reads:

They recited their vows in the Garden of Love.

I started with a TH paper doll couple who were getting married.

I used TH washi (or he calls it "tissue") tape on which the couple could stand.  I also turned

my shrunken hearts into flowers.

The stems of the "flowers" were made of more tape, this time gold arrows, rather appropriate for the hearts, I thought.

Here are a few more detail shots.

For this page, I started by spritzing some of my handmade shimmering mists on the 110 lb card stock substrate.  I computer generated the words and colored them using water soluble crayons.   I then added the TH paper dolls that stood on washi tape.  Finally, I positioned the shrink plastic hearts on the page.  I tied the hearts to more washi type tape that had arrows.

I am so grateful that you stopped by today.  I am super pleased to have been invited to be a guest designer again, too.  It was especially wonderful since recycling is something I live for.  Please join me for the next two weeks at Try it on Tuesday with your recycling ideas and also please join me at Art Journal Journey through the end of February with your Hearts inspired art.