Ever since I ordered these shrinky dinks online I’ve been dreaming and scheming of ways to use them again. I like to get the most out of my craft supplies. Plus, when the craft involves sitting and coloring you best believe I will be doing it again. And again. And again.

I definitely jumped on the coloring band wagon. Well, actually, Rose and I had our own little coloring train when we were in college. We bought some of those giant coloring pages they sell at A.C. Moore in the kids section and would just sit on our dorm room floor (ew) and color them in as we watched TV. I think we bought a Spongebob one and a Zoo themed one. They were great. I still have some of those coloring pages, I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away (#hoarder).

Then once all these awesome coloring books popped up over the past couple of years I knew I had to get one (or two or three). It totally is therapeutic to just sit and color something in. As a crafty person, it’s nice to have a craft that is mindless and simple like coloring.

That’s why making these cactus light shrinky dinks was so much fun. I just got to sit and color in different cactus all day. No complaints here. I’m already thinking of other ways I can use shrinky dinks just so I have an excuse to color some more!

Keep read below to find out how to make these shrinky links cactus lights:

Materials:

• Shrinky dinks
• Sharpies or permanent markers
• Scissors
• Oven
• Parchment paper
• Hot glue gun
• String lights

 

Instructions:

1. Start by drawing a cactus onto your shrinky dinks. You can either free-hand this or trace an image like I did. I chose to do several different types of cactus but feel free to just do one. For size reference my drawing on the shrinky dinks was about 5.5 inches long. You want them fairly big so you can glue them onto the lights.
2. Color in your cactus using different sharpies.
3. Cut out your cactus. I found that when I completely around the whole cactus – hugging the cactus the whole way – that this was more likely to curl and stick on itself in the oven. To remedy this I started to just cut mostly around the cactus but didn’t hug it and left some blank space between stems if there were multiple peaks.
4. Pre-heat your oven to 325ºF and then place your cactus shrinky dinks on a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Put in the oven for about 3 minutes. Keep an eye on them – they will first curl up and then eventually (if all goes well) uncurl and lay flat again. This was taking about 3 minutes for me but might be shorter for your oven so just keep an eye on them.
5. With your hot glue gun glue on two dots on the back of your cactus shrinky dink. Then firmly press onto the string lights between the actual light. Repeat this process with all of your cactus.
   

   

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6. Plug in your lights and enjoy! Just as a warning I would make sure you were always in the room when these are on and to not leave them on for a super long amount of time just because I’m not sure how the plastic will fare with the light.

 

Now you just have to find a cute place to hang up your cactus shrinky dinks lights! I think I’m going to put mine around my desk. I already have my cactus piñata sitting there so it seems only appropriate to add some more cactus paraphernalia.

If you want more cactus and succulent themed DIYs/ideas check out this Pinterest board!