Shrinky Dink Easter Egg Ornaments

By Alissa Marquess Zorn on April 6, 2012 (updated October 24, 2016)

Recycle foam plates into this quick Easter craft

Easter Egg Tree Recycled ornaments We’re recycling number 6 plastic again by making it into homemade shrinky dinks. You know Shrinky Dinks, yes? We’ve been having fun salvaging plastic from our recycle bin to make these. (See my other recycled platic shrinky dink post here)

This time the plastic we’re using is styrofoam meat trays and a deli container. The great thing about these little egg ornaments is that everyone can play. In fact, in our house it was good that I made some too, because the kids got to see what happened when I shrunk mine. They decided to leave their eggs large. You know- let mama experiment with HER art project first.

I bet you’ve got everything you need:

#6 foam plates, tray, etc.
a toothpick for poking holes
permanent makers
your egg template- (cut an egg shape out of paper)
string to hang the ornaments
scissors
Aluminum foil if you are going to shrink your ornaments

To cut out the eggs I used a toothpick to trace my egg shape onto the foam and then cut with scissors.

To decorate the eggs the kids used permanent marker. The toddler used washable markers that barely showed up, but she had fun breaking the foam anyhow.

Coloring shrinky dink ornaments — What are YOU drawing?

I shrunk the ornaments I made by putting them onto an aluminum tray in a 300f oven for a few minutes. They start to curl and then become mostly flat (you can flatten them more immediately after they come out of the oven) These do release a little bit of fumes, but not very much; I just turned on the vent fan.

If you want a hole in your shrunken ornament you’ll need to make one before shrinking, about 1/4″ big at least , unless you plan to use a drill.

Shrinky dink recycled ornaments — Here’s how much they shrunk!

Making Shrinky Dinks from recycled plastic The boys saw the shrunken eggs and both said, “No Way” was I going to do that to their ornaments, so we simply made a hole at the top of theirs and stung colored thread through for hanging. My four year old was so into making these that we’ve did this for three days in a row.