HOW CAN I GET MY SHRINKY DINK TO FLATTEN CORRECTLY

I have been using shrinky dinks lately, but not quite getting them to come out correctly. I have the 8"x10" sheets and I am trying to shrink those down into perfect squares. I am using an oven though and a cookie sheet, 325 degrees, put them in for five minutes and I watch them curl up and seemingly begin to flatten out, but they never flatten out completely. They become somewhat warped instead. What can I do?? Any tips would be greatly appreciated!!

I never have tried to do a whole sheet. I do shapes that I cut by hand or with the diecut. I use the embossing gun and a pen, which I use to straighten out the shape as it is curling!

Hope that helps a little!

I usually put a book on them when they are still warm (not just out of the oven), but I've never done large sheets. I usually do small lettering for titles.

I've only done small peices also and I usually keep heating it untill it flattens.

You know, it could be that since you're using a whole sheet and there's so much plastic to shrink that it's just going to take longer to shrink. Try heating it longer.

I've never done whole sheets before either. One thing that I did find was that although the directions say to heat the plastic on cut up brown paper sack, I got better results by heating directly on the cookie sheet. But again, that was small stuff. don't know if a big sheet will react the same way. And like Kathy, I heat until it flattens, not necessarily by time.

Are you heating them on a metal pan? Try using a piece of cardboard instead. I usually will put a piece of vellum over the top along with a couple heavy spoons to hold the vellum down firmly. It reduces the warping but I don't know if you can ever completely eliminate curling.

If you have a large acrylic stamp mount, or something similiar you can slap it on the shrink plastic as soon as you take it out of the oven. Mine usually come out flat that way. Don't take it out of the oven until 30 sec after it unrolls... Hope that helps...

Umm... it just occured to me (and as I am writing this, I am hoping that you are LEGIT in asking this question), that you said that you are trying to shrink a rectangle into a "perfect square"... that's not gonna happen no matter what way you do it! You are gonna have to trim it INTO a square first. And you are never going to get anything "perfect", shrinky dinks don't shrink "perfect", it says so on the package.

HTH!