Christmas Danglers

This Christmas project is a magical one, you can watch your dangler shrink in size in the oven.

To make a shrink to dinky dangler you will need...
Flat polystyrene. A great source of polystyrene can be found in food packaging Cold meats are sometimes displayed on polystyrene rays and some pizzas have polystyrene backing to keep them flat.
You can also use other type 6 plastics. Type 6 is Polystyrene e.g.. Yoghurt pots, foam meat or fish trays, fast food, boxes and some egg cartons, vending cups, plastic cutlery, protective packaging for electronic goods and toys.

You will also need, a black marker pen, felt tip pens, threading cord or skoobies, beads and bells, greaseproof paper and an oven. Younger children may need adult help when using the oven.

First design your dangler and draw it onto the polystyrene. The snowman fob was 14.5cm high when first drawn and shrank to 7cm high just to give you a rough idea. Bear shrinkage in mind when creating your dangler.

Draw the outlines of the fob with a black marker pen and colour in with felt tips. Cut out the fob, turn and outline and colour the reverse side. You can also run the black marker along the edges of the dangler.

Put a hole in the top of the dangler. The hole will shrink too, so make sue that the hole is about 1cm across. When baked the fob will become rigid and you will not be able to make a hole.

Put the fob onto a baking try line with greaseproof paper ad put into a preheated oven set to Gas mark 4, 180 Centigrade or 350 Fahrenheit. Make sure the room is well ventilated when baking the danglers.

Fobs take only 2 minutes or so to shrink. If your oven has a glass front you can watch the shrinking process. Sometimes the fobs curl up. If you are quick you can get them out and uncurl them, they shouldn't be too hot to touch. If they only curl slightly put a flat oven gloved hand on them to press them firmly flat again.

The fobs become cool and hard in no time.

Thread a length of threading cord or a skoobie through the hole in the dangler. Bring the two ends together and thread a bead on and tie a knot to hole the bad and dangler into place. Leave a loop big enough to pass the dangler through, and tie another knot. More threading cord and beads can be added, and you could add bells, which would add extra festive cheer. Attach the Christmas danglers to your belongings and enjoy.

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