Swap: I forgot the pins.... (photos added)

OMG I forgot about the pins. Doh! I made some shrink plastic pins to decorate the pincushion, using this tutorial on the Weewonderfuls website. BTW, I pinched Gilraen's photos and put them together below - thanks for sharing Gilraen!

I decorated the shrink plastic with chalks, and rubber stamped some flowers, hearts, dresses and lace using Stayzon ink. As I was short on time I used my paper punches to cut out some shapes (the flower and butterfly punch are about 2cm in diameter to give you an idea of size).

I used gelly roll and souffle pens to add more colour and depth. But you can also use colouring pencils, gel pens, permanent markers etc... Just remember that the colours intensify as the plastic shrinks so less is definitely more.

If you're having trouble applying the colour to the plastic, use either the rough side or take a piece of low grade sand paper and rub it gently across the plastic a few times. This gives the colour something to grab onto.

You can shrink these in the oven but I did them one by one using my heat gun. Basically you pierce each shape with a pin and push the shape all the way to the pin head. When you apply the heat and the plastic shrinks it sticks to the pin. Well, nearly always it does!

I think my favourite is the dress. Actually it's the flower. No wait, it's the butterfly.... Oh well. I think they all look pretty good actually. It's just a shame the photo quality is so cr*p! That's what I get for rushing. Thanks to Gilraen's photos and a little TLC using paint.net these photos are much better than the one I originally posted!