How to make eyes for dolls. Eyes for toys with their own hands from various materials: detailed master classes with photos and descriptions of the work. To create eyes we need

Toys self made are in great demand among both children and adults. Masters and craftswomen put their soul into the characters they create, so every detail is important. They say that the eyes are the mirror of the soul. This correct remark can be applied with the same success to dolls or toys. How to make eyes with your own hands, this article will help you figure it out. Properly selected eyes will give the product the right mood and character. Therefore, a lot of time is devoted to their selection.

Pros of making your own eyes

The world of fittings is rich in its variety of ready-made elements for new creations: spouts, eyes, eyelashes, mustaches. But all these products are mass-oriented factory production. Undoubtedly, in such an assortment you can pick up the necessary details. But do-it-yourself eyes for toys are radically different in uniqueness.

Important advantages of your self-manufacturing will be the following:

any material. You don't need to be tied to finished products, fantasy and creativity will help make the toy unforgettable;
the desired shape, because in stores the eyes are usually round or oval. But after all, no one forbids the doll to make eyes in the shape of hearts;
a suitable color, which is also presented in a rather stingy assortment (yellow, blue, green, brown or black). Rarely there are different from the standard color of the iris.

Choosing the material for future eyes

Actually in this issue the main assistant is your unlimited imagination. After all, anything can be a material (or something that can be glued well). The main nuance is to make the eyes durable, and not torn in a day. More stringent quality requirements apply to children's toys: well glued or sewn, safe, not fragile. If a doll or toy is being considered that will stand on a shelf for beauty, then the choice will already be wider.

For an auxiliary push to your thoughts, you can list the most popular and used materials for the eye of toys (it’s not difficult to make them with your own hands):

glass (transparent cabochons as a base);
epoxy resin cabochons as an alternative to glass;
wooden elements (buttons, blanks of the desired shape and size);
eyes made of wool;
patterns made of leather or felt;
connected eyes;
beads;
nuts (great option for a steampunk or robot style);
plastic or polymer clay.

Classics of the genre

The most familiar and frequently encountered are for toys. You can create them with your own hands in a matter of minutes.

Three types of components are needed for the manufacture:

glass cabochons of the desired size and shape,
base for attaching to a toy,
materials for coloring the eyes.

Glue is needed to connect the eye together. Usually experienced needlewomen advise "Crystal", superglue for shoes, glue gun. This is down to personal preference. The set of other tools will depend on the selected materials.

The mount is conveniently made from the base of stud earrings. It is easy to stick to the eye on one side and it will not be difficult to make a convenient loop on the other side. As another option, you can offer a ready-made eye to be glued to a toy or sewn on.

And finally, there was a choice of material or materials for coloring the eyes. In this case, the irrepressible imagination of the creator comes into play again. The easiest way is to print the picture and cut it out. It should be borne in mind that when washing the paper may be damaged. The second option is to draw the iris and pupil on the flat side of the cabochon. To do this, you can use paints (acrylic, oil, you can try gouache or any fairly thick paint), nail polishes (according to reviews, rich colors are obtained), markers, felt-tip pens. In general, everything that can be drawn.

Having prepared all the necessary tools, we begin using glue to assemble glass eyes for toys with our own hands. There are a lot of ways to create them, as you can see.

Similarly, instead of glass cabochons, you can use their epoxy version. One of the advantages of this material is that the mold can be made by yourself. That is, you will no longer be tied to size, shape or bulge.

A distinctive feature of this type of peephole (made of glass or resin) is the volume of the part and natural highlights. The doll or toy will seem to have a lively look.

For those who are for the environment

In the era of striving for natural materials, wooden buttons or wooden blanks of the desired shape and size (found in stores for creativity and needlework) will serve as an excellent option for the peephole. Add painting with paints, felt-tip pens (again, at your discretion, use everything that draws). For better protection from external factors cover protective varnish. And new toy look at the world wooden eyes. For toys made of wood with your own hands, you can make many details: nose, brooches, buttons. When connecting two or more elements, your creation will look harmonious and complete.

Required Tools:

buttons or blanks made of wood,
paints or markers,
varnish for fixing the picture,
needle and thread (if the eyes will be sewn),
glue (if the eyes will be glued).

Felt, leather. What else will you add?

To make a peephole for toys with your own hands from similar materials, you will need:

scissors, best manicure, as the details must be done carefully and usually small in size,
glue,
pieces of leather or felt of the desired colors (in the absence of multi-colored ones, you can use paints).

You need to cut out three parts for each eye: sclera (the largest circle or oval, this is the white of the eye), iris (medium-sized part), pupil (most small circle, usually black, but this is your unique toy, so feel free to experiment).

The next step is to glue your blanks in layers into a single structure. Then connect it with the toy.

It is worth noting that it is necessary to glue very carefully, especially the edges of the patterns. So that in the future the eyes do not become disheveled, glue the circles well around the perimeter.

In addition to leather or felt, you can use any dense fabric. Patterns connected in three layers give the eyes a convex shape, which looks voluminous and quite natural.

Button eyes

Because that's what they're often called. And not in vain. After all, a variety of decorated buttons, buttons, beads act as an eye.

For example, beads pair perfectly with round head pins. The metal needle at the end is rounded, holding the two pieces together. At first it may seem absurd to connect two balls together, but in practice it looks very original.

Buttons to give a resemblance to the eye can be painted with paints, glued with rhinestones.

Such ideas are also relevant, so do not refuse to make eyes for toys with your own hands.

Get hooks, knitting needles, threads

Knitted toys deserve special attention. Eyes for them can be made in several ways.

First, tie voluminous balls to fit, glue pupils from another material on them or embroider in a contrasting color.

Secondly, flat eye patterns are crocheted separately, after which they are attached to the toy (again, they are either glued or sewn on). This option is convenient in that an eye is immediately made from multi-colored threads. If a ready-made scheme is used, then the main thing is not to forget to make the details symmetrical.

Thirdly, you can use the cross-stitch or satin stitch technique. It will turn out to achieve amazing results if you use multi-colored threads.

In this way, do-it-yourself eyes for knitted toys are created. A good option is that the same material is involved in the work - threads. Therefore, the creation will look holistically.

They are alive

We are talking about pupils that can move if the toy is shaken. There are ways to make them yourself so as not to search in stores.

To do this, you will need the following materials and tools:

empty blister packs from tablets (do not forget to wash them from medicines),
as a pupil of a bead, half a pea (everything will depend on the desired size),
glue,
scissors,
paper or cardboard for the main background of the eye (optional white color),
paints.

The first step is to paint the pupil black (or whatever you want) and let it dry.

We cut off two sections from the empty package of tablets, into which we place the colored pupils.

On the background, carefully glue cardboard or paper.

Now it remains only to carefully cut the finished eyes with scissors and glue them to the toy.

Everything is ready, you can shake your doll, her pupils will jump mischievously to the pace.

I completely disliked the purchased eyes: the glass ones are not bright enough and expressive, the acrylic ones have a strange bulge above the iris and not enough white sclera (which is very striking on a doll from a flumo not tinted in the mass), and besides, both of them do not have ( as I call it) shadows from the eyelid - darkened irises at the top, highlighted at the bottom. Taking into account all of the above, after listening to good advice and reading everything, I made homemade false eyes, and the result suited me. It’s a pity that you can’t see the full depth of the look and wonderful glare in the photo =)

I decided not to make balloons. Adjust, make sure that there are no gaps, put it correctly so that there is no strabismus. I decided to make a single plate.
Roll out the casserole, warm it up a little on the battery, cut into slices.

Attach to the orbits from the inside, sprinkled with talc

Looks very natural

Carefully take out, bake

Make beautiful with a dremel, sand

Insert into place, outline the iris and pupil

Drill a convex sphere under the iris

Drill out the pupil. Lyrical digression about the pupil. It turned out very beautifully in my test eyes: a deep pupil, enhanced by the effect of the corneal lens. But I could not avoid bubbles - neither enamel, nor epoxy (even on a battery), nor varnish can be spilled into a thin hole with a diameter of less than a millimeter. If I figure out how to solve this issue, I’ll write it down later, but for now I’ll advise you not to drill a deep pupil, but just outline it a little.

We put it in place, check the look.

Now we paint. The work is difficult, painstaking. Once a casserole - of course, acrylic. I don't like it, but it has advantages. It dries quickly, the dried one can be cleaned with a blade, if somewhere they crawled out over the edge. Acrylic paint drying retarders exist in nature, I bought it, but never tried it - I somehow got used to it anyway. Another such nuance is that it is quite difficult to choose a natural palette. I used a reference photo of green eyes (there is a danger of making the color too bright, unnatural). So, let's get started: paint the iris with an even medium color

We highlight the middle (ring), applying radial strokes in a lighter tone

The next layer - even lighter - at the bottom of the iris

Now we take the color a few tones darker and emphasize the contours of the iris, and also apply light radial strokes

We paint the pupil

Darken the top of the iris (like a shadow from the eyelid)

We imitate the shadow from the eyelid and on the sclera (I used black pigment), and also apply a little pink tone to the corners of the eyes

After this stage, numerous experiments began, during which I came to the following scheme:
first we cover the whole eye with vitreous varnish - acrylic vitreous varnish - thick, transparent, very glossy, with good fluidity. If he "held a drop", I would use it for the entire cornea, but alas, it spreads. Therefore, we cover only the sclera with it and fill the recess of the pupil

Here are just a small part of the experiments: jewelry enamel, vitreous varnish, epoxy transparent glue.

A lyrical digression about jewelry enamel. Inna ( moving dolls ) advised me to use Kavalin jewelry enamel. I bought it, but without specifying the catalyst, I took it for round surfaces. Maybe this is the whole point - it didn’t grow together with enamel in any way) Firstly, it’s difficult to choose the proportions - 10:4. Slightly mistaken in one direction or another - it will not harden, the lib will be brittle and crack. Secondly, unclear - that's at least what you do with it! If dried in the oven (at 60 degrees) - less cloudy, but still. Thirdly, bubbles - you can’t knead without them! On the jewelry forum, it is advised to use a hairdryer - yes, it works, the enamel liquefies and the bubbles burst. But in the case of thin application - a bubble from a drop of 3 mm thick cannot be removed by anything, in any way! In terms of strength, of course, it is good, and, perhaps, I will find a use for it. I already wrote about vitreous varnish above - it’s good for everyone, but it spreads, does not hold its shape, and of course, it is much inferior to enamel in strength. Then I decided to try just a transparent epoxy glue, this one:

It costs 300 rubles, it is available in Wanderer, and it suited me completely.

We apply the same eye drops, put on the battery for 1 minute.

Warm mixes better - less stirring, less bubbles. Mix on a smooth surface, very slowly and gently. It thickens quickly, so for all our manipulations we have literally a few minutes.

We take a toothpick and put a drop on the iris, making sure that the drops are symmetrical (and that there are no bubbles!)

All 4 sets.

Making toys with your own hands is becoming an increasingly popular art. Moreover, everything necessary materials for sewing or knitting is easy to find in ordinary stores. But with such a seemingly trifle as the eyes, difficulties often arise. After all, it is not easy to find something similar to them in the store. In this case, it is useful to learn how to make eyes for toys with your own hands. This will solve the problem perfectly and will not take much time.

We sew beautiful eyes for toys from plastic spoons

For large soft toys and dolls, plastic eyes from spoons are perfect. You can make them very simply and quickly.

To work, you will need two plastic spoons, acrylic paints, double-sided tape and sandpaper.

You will only need the oval scoops of the spoons, so they need to be carefully cut off from the handles. On convex surfaces, you need to lightly walk with sandpaper so that the paint adheres well to them.

We attach the future eyes to the cardboard with double-sided tape and apply white paint. From above we draw the contours of the irises - green (blue or brown) ovals.

Draw black pupils, black outline of the iris. With white paint we apply small strokes-glare. We draw the eyelids in flesh color. The eyes are ready!

How can you crochet your eyes correctly?

Knitted eyes are perfect for knitted toy, but they can also be used for other soft toys.

For work you will need:

Yarn of three colors - white, green and black.
Hook
sewing needle

Description of knitting.

Our master class begins with knitting with black yarn: you need to dial 3 air loops, close them into a ring and knit 9 half columns with nikads from them. Then we attach a green thread and knit in the next row 2 half double crochets in each of the previous row.

Then we knit with a white thread according to the following pattern: chain stitch, 2 single crochet, half double crochet, half double crochet and double crochet, double crochet, double crochet and half double crochet, half double crochet, 2 single crochet, connecting post, fasten and cut a thread of sufficient length to form a highlight on the pupil.

With small lines we embroider highlights on the pupils. The eyes are ready!

We make quick and easy eyes for felt toys with our own hands

Such eyes are perfect for handmade dolls. To work, you will need sheet felt, artificial cilia, glue "moment", scissors, a sheet of cardboard, a pencil.

First you need to draw the eyes. Their shape may be different, depending on the type of toy.

The drawn eyes need to be cut out and tried on on a toy, if necessary, adjust the size or shape. At one of the eyes, we cut out the pupil so that the cardboard patterns become templates. On the outer contour, cut out blanks from white felt. By small pattern– interior parts in blue or green.

We glue the pieces together. Cut and glue highlights from white felt. The contours need to be circled with a thin black felt-tip pen. Glue on the eyelashes. The eyes for the dolls are ready!

Made of plastic and epoxy resin.

Black blanks of pupils with white glare dots need to be molded from plastic and baked.

We dilute the epoxy resin according to the instructions in the package. To give the eyes a beautiful shade, add a little ink from the gel rod to the solution, you can take any suitable color.

Then we take empty blisters from under the tablets. We put the pupils in the recesses and fill them with epoxy. It is very convenient to do this with a syringe. A toothpick will help move the pupil slightly. It is necessary that there are no bubbles in the resin.

Leave the eyes to dry for about a day. We cut out the cells from under the tablets so as not to capture anything extra.

Eyelashes can be done upon request. Ready-made ones can be found in stores, or you can make them yourself using fishing line, thread, yarn, etc.

Create black eyes from yarn and glue for dolls

This is another simple and understandable way make eyes for toys from improvised materials. Yarn is needed in two colors - black and a color suitable for the iris (green, blue, brown, etc.). It will take quite a bit. Therefore, you can take any leftover threads from knitting or ask someone who knits.

You need to choose a transparent glue "moment". We lay out the main yarn in the form of a circle, on top - a small black circle. We squeeze the glue onto the yarn with a drop of a suitable size and let it dry. Excess yarn must be cut with scissors.

In addition, the eyes can be made from suitable round or oval buttons. You can color the buttons acrylic paints. Instead of buttons, you can also take beads.

On some toys, fabric or leather eyes will look good, which can be made like felt eyes in the master class above.

Video on the topic of the article

For those who want to analyze the topic in more detail and learn new interesting ideas, we have prepared a selection of video master classes:

Making toys with your own hands is becoming an increasingly popular art. Moreover, all the necessary materials for sewing or knitting are easy to find in ordinary stores. But with such a seemingly trifle as the eyes, difficulties often arise. After all, it is not easy to find something similar to them in the store. In this case, it is useful to learn how to make eyes for toys with your own hands. This will solve the problem perfectly and will not take much time.

We sew beautiful eyes for toys from plastic spoons

For large soft toys and dolls, plastic eyes from spoons are perfect. You can make them very simply and quickly.

To work, you will need two plastic spoons, acrylic paints, double-sided tape and sandpaper.

We attach the future eyes to the cardboard with double-sided tape and apply white paint. From above we draw the contours of the irises - green (blue or brown) ovals.

Draw black pupils, black outline of the iris. With white paint we apply small strokes-glare. We draw the eyelids in flesh color. The eyes are ready!

How can you crochet your eyes correctly?

Knitted eyes are perfect for knitted toys, but they can also be used for other soft toys.

For work you will need:

Yarn of three colors - white, green and black.
Hook
sewing needle

Description of knitting.

Then we knit with white thread according to the following scheme: air loop, 2 single crochet, half double crochet, half double crochet and double crochet, double crochet, double crochet and half double crochet, half double crochet, 2 single crochet, connecting column, fasten and cut a thread of sufficient length to form a highlight on the pupil.

With small lines we embroider highlights on the pupils. The eyes are ready!

We make quick and easy eyes for felt toys with our own hands

Such eyes are perfect for handmade dolls. To work, you will need sheet felt, artificial cilia, glue "moment", scissors, a sheet of cardboard, a pencil.

First you need to draw the eyes. Their shape may be different, depending on the type of toy.

The drawn eyes need to be cut out and tried on on a toy, if necessary, adjust the size or shape. At one of the eyes, we cut out the pupil so that the cardboard patterns become templates. On the outer contour, cut out blanks from white felt. According to a small template - the inner parts of blue or green.

We glue the pieces together. Cut and glue highlights from white felt. The contours need to be circled with a thin black felt-tip pen. Glue on the eyelashes. The eyes for the dolls are ready!

Made of plastic and epoxy resin.

Black blanks of pupils with white glare dots need to be molded from plastic and baked.

We dilute the epoxy resin according to the instructions in the package. To give the eyes a beautiful shade, add a little ink from the gel rod to the solution, you can take any suitable color.

Leave the eyes to dry for about a day. We cut out the cells from under the tablets so as not to capture anything extra.

Eyelashes can be done upon request. Ready-made ones can be found in stores, or you can make them yourself using fishing line, thread, yarn, etc.

Create black eyes from yarn and glue for dolls

This is another simple and straightforward way to make eyes for a toy from improvised materials. Yarn is needed in two colors - black and a color suitable for the iris (green, blue, brown, etc.). It will take quite a bit. Therefore, you can take any leftover threads from knitting or ask someone who knits.

In addition, the eyes can be made from suitable round or oval buttons. You can paint the buttons with acrylic paints. Instead of buttons, you can also take beads.

On some toys, fabric or leather eyes will look good, which can be made like felt eyes in the master class above.

Video on the topic of the article

For those who want to analyze the topic in more detail and draw new interesting ideas, we have prepared a selection of video master classes:

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Many are faced with the fact that it is not so easy to find the right size, color and type of eyes for their crafts. Therefore, we will learn how to make eyes with our own hands!

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So let's get started.

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To create eyes we need:

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1. Glasses (in any pet store they can be found in the aquarium section).

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2. Brushes (you can get by with one, but you can take thinner and thicker ones).

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3. Acrylic paints.

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4. Palette and some water.

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I take a few different shades one color to make the eye look more natural and beautiful. It must be remembered that when working with glass, you will have to apply the paint in the reverse order and if you usually put it first dark color, and then the glare and streaks are lighter on it, then here we start with light veins and the pupil.

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The first coat of paint is always translucent. In the iris, this is good, but the pupil must be deep.

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To draw a pupil, you need to put a dot approximately in the middle, and then gradually expand it with a brush.

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After the first layer of paint dries up and we are convinced that both pupils are the same size, you can apply a second layer without sparing the acrylic.

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Since I plan to make two toys in the near future, I'm making two pairs of eyes: a cat's and a normal one.

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After the pupil dries, I begin to apply the iris.

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Most importantly, brush from the center to the edges and not be afraid to leave bold strokes of paint.

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I have this paint with the effect of mother-of-pearl and it gives a very interesting shine to the look. It is optional and you can just use any light base paint.

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After the base paint dries, I extrude some acrylic onto the paper, according to my design. The cat's eye will be green-yellow. The second pair is blue.

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For cat eyes I use green and two shades of yellow:

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