Shrinky dinks

No, this post is not about how funny the boys think it is when they look at each other through the wrong end of the telescope at bath time. (Although that might make a good subject too.)

This is about actual Shrinky Dinks, and how fun and probably toxic they are, and how conflicted I feel about providing yet another disposable toy for my children.

For me, doing Shrinky Dinks with the kids is like rediscovering the joy of using the "reduce" feature on my dad's office Xerox machine when I was little. For someone who likes miniatures anyway, this was a miracle: draw a picture, push a button, and it comes out half the size! Then you can use THAT picture, push a button, and it comes out even smaller! Do this a few times, and you suddenly have a very tiny, cute, somewhat muddy picture of, say, a tree and a house and your mom and a cat.

You also have eight or ten 50-95% unused pieces of paper that were just used as the interim steps, which, because it was way back in the 70s and you didn't really think about it, you just crumpled up and threw in the trash.

While it's probably too late for me to feel guilty about wasting the electricity, copier toner, and paper from those projects, I do get a twinge when the boys do craft projects like ironing beads, coloring books, Shrinky Dinks, and mosaic sticker pictures now. Because let's face it, do we save any of these masterpieces? The half-finished dinosaur coloring pages, the fusible bead bracelets that don't fit anyone, the warped Shrinky Dinks in the shape of small African masks? Nope. We enjoy them for a short while, and then we stick them in a box or sneak them out for recycling, and forget about them. (We do save actual illustrations by the children, but the boys like putting things together better than drawing from imagination, so we have very few of those so far.)

Each month, I'm trying to be more mindful of waste -- I'm reminded every Wednesday night when our neighbors put out one trash can apiece and we put out two, that we could be doing better. I try to buy in bulk from time to time, I use my own bags, I pay my bills online. But selfishly, I want to be able to keep doing disposable crafts so my children can share in the fun of creating something special -- whether or not it's a keeper.