DIY best friend shrink plastic pendants for Galentine's Day

DIY best friend shrink plastic pendants for Galentine's Day

Best friends friendship shrink plastic pendants with free printable

There were a few key pieces of ‘jewellery’ that were must haves when I was a kid (keep in mind I’m using the word jewellery in the loosest sense of the term here). Practically every girl in the grade had them – they were like rites of passage, especially for declaring your bond with your bff.

Best friends friendship shrink plastic pendants with free printable

One such item was the friendship bracelet, of which I’m happy to say I had several (I guess it helped that we could make them ourselves – low cost is key when you’re in primary school!). The other was the best friend pendant, which sadly I missed out on. Cue sad child tears here.

I like to think I didn’t own a best friend pendant because I had no money to buy one (and not because I had no friends!). Either way, there’s nothing like making up for lost time and so here I am, crafting up some pendants in preparation for Galentine’s day!

Best friends friendship shrink plastic pendants with free printable

Do you know a few gal pals that love to craft? Get them in on this project and then share the pendants out to cement your friendship! 😉

Best friends friendship shrink plastic pendants with free printable

Materials

Best friends friendship shrink plastic pendants with free printable

Step 1

Download the best friend pendant printable (at the end of this post) and print it onto a shrink plastic sheet. Make sure you use the correct type of printer for your plastic; mine was made for an inkjet printer, but you can get sheets for laser printers too.

Side note: The hearts will look light when first printed, but the colours will darken quite a bit when the pendants are shrunk.

Once you’ve printed out the file, cut out each of the heart pendants with a pair of scissors.

Best friends friendship shrink plastic pendants with free printable

Step 2

On each heart, you’ll see a thin white or black ‘crack’ running down the centre. Cut each of your pendants in half down the middle, using the line as a guide.

Best friends friendship shrink plastic pendants with free printable

Step 3

Punch a hole in the top of each half-heart with a hole punch. Don’t worry if the hole looks a bit large, it’ll shrink in size along with the rest of the pendant once you bake your plastic.

Best friends friendship shrink plastic pendants with free printable

Step 4

Follow the manufacturer’s instructions to shrink your best friend pendants. My shrink plastic needed to be laid on top of baking paper and placed in a 150° celcius oven, but the directions for yours might be different so make sure you check before baking.

Step 5

Once your pendants have shrunk and cooled, use a pair of jewellery pliers to insert jump rings through the holes you punched in Step 3.

Best friends friendship shrink plastic pendants with free printable

Step 6

Feed a chain through each jump ring and your necklaces are ready to hand out to your gal pals!

Best friends friendship shrink plastic pendants with free printable

Best friends friendship shrink plastic pendants with free printable

Best friends friendship shrink plastic pendants with free printable

Although the traditional best friend necklace was the reason I came up with this project, as you can see you don’t have to stick to making necklaces with this printable. I decided the pizza and rainbow hearts would make great earrings, and you could also whip up a bracelet using one (or many) of the hearts as charms.

Get your kids involved too – they could help you craft and then take their heart creations to school for their friends!

Best friend pendants printable

xx Steph

 

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