Goldilocks and the three bears...

Goldilocks (that's me) made three bears. 

She made 'em from the Shrinky Dinks shrink plastic she found in the cupboard. 

She used her Sullivans bear punch to punch the bears out and got a little concerned when the punch jammed. She banged it and it went back to normal, but still, it wasn't good. 

(Goldilocks remembers the last time she made Shrinkies. She used a different brand of punches back then and they were more solid. Some companies now make their punches with a bit less steel inside them, so they're lighter and cheaper. She remembers how heavy the old ones were. Yep, they're not like that anymore. 

Anyway, Goldie says things have changed and to be careful with your punches, or use dies if you're unsure. Or punch the teddy out in cardstock, trace it onto the shrink plastic and cut it out for an even safer option.)

Goldie used a Sharpie to draw the face on. Her Sharpie doesn't like getting started on slick surfaces, so she had to be careful when drawing.

She actually had to chuck a teddy and punch another because she drew a dumb face. Shrinkies or not, that's pretty usual. Sometimes, no matter what Goldie does, she can't draw a good face to save her life. She knows she's not alone.

In readiness for shrinking, Goldilocks went and turned the oven on, but then decided to use her heat tool instead.

She thought of taking photos of the shrinking teddy, but they went out the window as soon as she started because she struggled to control the sucker.

And then his ear stuck to his stomach.

And she burnt her fingers on the hot plastic.

And she plonked an acrylic block on the still-hot teddy and completely squashed his face.

She was not impressed...shrinking teddies in the oven wasn't ever this much trouble, she thought.

Goldie took a photo of Teddy number 1, feeling sorry for him the whole time.

And feeling sorry for her burnt fingers.

And feeling sorry for her silly crafty self because it's really not that hard to shrink a teddy.

Determined to be more prepared the second time, Goldie grabbed her trusty tweezers and then started shrinking Teddy number 2.

He cooperated a bit better, although she still squashed his face a bit. And left fingerprints in it.

She never was good at watching paint dry.

Goldilocks thought she was over the shrinking at this point.

Suddenly it was clear to her why the shrink plastic had stayed in the cupboard for all those years.

She couldn't believe the bits of fluff that had gotten themselves stuck in the drying plastic. That never happened in the oven...

She was also annoyed at the crack she made in Teddy number 1. Did she mention that?

She also worked out it wasn't a good idea to shrink things on her rubber mat.

Rubber kinda melts.

Her mat didn't melt, but it definitely softened somewhat.

Goldie decided to take a photo of the original-sized teddy shape, so she could finally go each lunch. She remembered the oven was on. Far out.

And then...

...she decided to try one last time.

Third time's the charm, they say.

Goldie picked up the heat tool to get going and accidentally touched the steel bit at the top...yeow. Burnt fingers...again.

Goldie rolled her eyes and firmly decided that a piece of shrink plastic and a heat tool were not going to beat her and she tried for the charm.

She got it. Goldie had much better luck with Teddy number 3.

He cooperated.

Goldie didn't burn her fingers.

He flattened himself out.

He turned out okay.

Unfortunately though, he had the worse drawn face of the lot, so he was a big disappointment.

(sigh)

The teddy shrinking experiment was teetering on the brink of disaster.

Goldilocks felt defeated.

She decided to write the blog post anyway because something can always be learnt from these things. She wrote and added photos and then got to the 'brink of disaster' bit. Brilliant, she thought, another disaster. First the overloaded card and now this.

And then she looked at the teddies sitting in front of her and realised they weren't a disaster after all.

Number 1 looked squashed, but he was smiling at her.

Number 2 looked kinda cute actually.

Number 3 was a little weird in the eyes, so he stayed a disappointment.

Two outta three wasn't bad even with their squashed faces, fingerprints, cracks and fluff bits.

Goldie marvelled at her ability to turn something from bad to good so quickly and then left the computer to go finally have lunch of an open sandwich in the oven...

...with her little finger still smarting from that darn heat tool.