12 Eye Options for Puppets, Dolls and Plushies

When I was designing my Pocket Puppet pattern, I tried dozens of different eyes before settling on my favorites. And even though I’ve been adding eyes to fluffy critters for decades, I still came up with a few new options.

While creating my SkillShare Class on Pocket Puppets, I included a video lesson on 12 different eyes. Those 12 options are listed below.

I’m showing these on my Pocket Puppets, but you could use these eyes on any doll, puppet or plushie. Try it!

1. Embroidered Eyes

Machine and hand embroidered eyes are a great option. If you have an embroidery machine, you can purchase eye or face designs, or look for in-the-hoop (ITH) patterns that stitch the face and seams for you. I have many ITH designs in my shop, and this is my favorite method.

2. Purchased Safety Eyes

Safety eyes have a stem and plastic back that clicks onto the stem. It’s a good practice to put a spot of glue on the back to ensure your fabric doesn’t unravel and let go of the eye.

There are many options of safety eyes on the market but very few in the craft stores these days. Here are three that I love for pocket puppets.

• Pair of joined ball eyes with pupils on Amazon.
• Clear eyes with focused pupils on Amazon, so you can add your own paint colors.
• Plain white dome eyes on Amazon, you will need to add your own pupil (painted on, felt or vinyl circle, etc)

3. Googly Eyes

You can use these as-is, or melt a hole in the back with a fine tip hot glue gun and put just a spot of glue behind the pupil to hold it in place. The eyes won’t wiggle, but they will give better eye focus this way.

4. Purchased Resin Sticker eyes

I have a few sets from Ojitos Adhesives that I purchased from Amazon. They have a self adhesive back but I’ve found you need to use fabric glue to make them stick permanently.

5. DIY Resin Eyes

6. Clear nail tips

I found a set of clear acrylic nail tips at the Dollar Tree and painted pupils on the back, then filled it in with white paint. (see photo above) You can then trim the size and shape with nail clippers. This worked pretty well! I found it easier to use a dropper to get a round, black pupil because I totally failed at freehand painting a perfect circular pupil. But if you’re a better painter than me, (most people are) then try a freehand eye design on clear acrylic nails.

7. BJD or “Follow Me” Eyes

You can purchase these, or make your own using resin or clay in an eye mold. When the pupil is recessed with a layer of clear resin on top, it looks like the eye is following you around. Some call it creepy, and others call it awesome.

8. Air dry or Polymer Clay

Sculpt your own dome or spherical eye shapes in white clay and add the black pupil or paint it on later. There are also eye dome molds to use with clay or resin.

9. Die Cuts

If you already have a die cutter machine that can do circles, you can cut your own eye shapes from adhesive felt, 2mm EVA foam sheets (craft foam) or vinyl. You can also try a hole punch, but I found it difficult to get clean cuts on those thicker materials with the punches.

For black felt pupils – look for those little felt sticky pads that go under furniture legs. Those are a tried and true pupil for puppet eyes and they come in different sizes.

10. 3D printed eyes

For those with access to a 3D printer, you can find puppet eyes or google eyes on free 3D print sites and resize them to fit project. Or you can design your own with TinkerCad.

11. Beads or Buttons

Using buttons and beads is a tried and true method. If you don’t want the button holes in your eyes, look for shank buttons with a dome shape.

12. EXTRA BONUS

You can combine the methods above to create unique eyes. Maybe you’ll 3D print a BJD eye filled with resin, Or buy a plain white dome eye and use your die cutter to make perfect felt pupils. Experiment and find something that is unique to your style and skill level.

Wrapping it up

Those were my 12 different ways to create eyes for small puppets, dolls and plushies. I have an older video on YouTube with more ideas for puppet eyes that includes things like ping-pong balls and fabric covered buttons if you want even MORE ideas.

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