Shrinky Dinks

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Shrinky Dinks were invented in 1973 by Kate Bloomberg and Betty Morris of Brookfield, Wisconsin. The first kits were manufactured by the major toy companies of the time such as Milton Bradley, Colorforms, Western Publishing and Skyline Toys. The shrink plastic is still available from many retailers and can be used for anything from charms to pins.

Prior to heating, the thin, flexible polystyrene plastic sheets can be coloured with felt-tip pens, acrylic paint, colored pencils, etc. and cut into shapes. However, oily or waxy substances (such as cheap colored pencils, crayons, or oil paint) are not suitable because they melt or burn in high heat. When heated in the oven or with a heat gun, the plastic shrinks by about 5/8ths and becomes thicker and more rigid, while retaining the colored design.

Although Shrinky Dinks is considered to be an arts and crafts product for children, many adult crafters find the product to be suitable for jewelery making and other projects.

Recently, University of California, Merced (UCM) Professor Michelle Khine has applied Shrinky Dinks to create tiny structures for the application of Microfluidics to topics such as stem cell research.

[edit] Pop-culture references

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California rock band Sugar Ray formed in 1992 with the name Shrinky Dinx, but later changed it (upon threat of lawsuit from Hasbro).
Family Guy - In a running joke, God invents Shrinky Dinks but, while he is getting them out of the oven, Albert Einstein steals them (Einstein earlier did the same thing with a patent office security door and the Theory of Relativity).
Futurama - In Anthology of Interest I, Fry invites a 500-foot-tall Bender to make Shrinky Dinks together, before the latter's untimely demise at the hands of a similarly-enlarged Doctor Zoidberg.