Googly eyes have been in popular culture for decades. It has been here for so long that even the historians can’t pinpoint when exactly our obsession with googly eyes started – especially large googly eyes that really freak out people because the pupils dance around so much.
Whatever their origins, we’re pretty sure that they are here to stay for the long haul. A basic googly eye is made up of a base that is manufactured from plastic or cardstock. This is the base layer.
On top of the base layer would be the same material, but only smaller – the pupil, which would often be black, to mimic what human eyes look like. The two layers would then be encapsulated by a plastic shell, which would prevent the pupil from sliding out. Combined, you have a simple googly eye that can be used for different crafts projects – there literally is no limit with what you can do with googly eyes.
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Googly eyes on shirts?
People use googly eyes on a variety of crafting projects, but did you know that you can also use it on shirts? It might sound strange at first, but we’re here to prove to you that googly eyes can add that touch of zany on shirt designs that can definitely help your designs stand out from the crowd. We’re going to share with you a couple of ideas that might help tickle your imagination when you’re working with DIY printed shirts or craft-inspired shirts.
Type of Design
The first type of design that you can explore for making shirts is the one character design. With the one character design, basically you have a large character printed from top to bottom of the shirt, and you are going to add googly eyes to that character to make it look more alive. Common characters are humans/humanoid characters, animals, etc.
Take note that on the level of zaniness, googly eyes really bring it, so tone down on additional elements so your shirt doesn’t look imbalanced or over the top. With the right visual tuning, you can get a shirt that is easy on the eyes but fun to look at because of the googly eyes.
The second type of design that you can try is ‘googly eye landscape.’ Basically what you need to do here is to create a wide, landscape design (say, clouds, or something to this effect) with the use of small googly eyes.
Googly eyes come in a variety of colors and they can easily be used to decorate a shirt along with other beads. There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to designing shirts, so you can combine print with additional ornaments as long as the design looks good in the end.
The third type of design which is the easiest of them all is to create an artistic canvas made of an abstract image and then add large googly eyes to the design. We recommend this for people who are eclectic with their designs and don’t like relying on cartoonish characters when designing shirts. It’s a good thing that googly eyes come in so many sizes from just 2 mm to over 2 feet. The sheer variety of possibilities when working with googly eyes should give your creativity a lot of freedom.
Googly eyes on crafts?
There is a ton of ways that you can use googly eyes to make your crafts ‘pop.’ For example, did you know that you can create pet rocks with just acrylic paint, sealant, googly eyes, and a bit of yarn? Here’s how it works: first decide on the background color or the main color of your pet rock. Your pet rock can be a creature, animal, or combination of both.
Pet rock pig
One of the easiest to do is the pet rock pig.
Step 1
A pet rock pig only needs an additional pair of pink craft pom poms. So you are going to paint the rock pink and the cheeks of the pig red. Be sure to paint one side first before moving on to the next one. Allow each side to dry before doing anything else.
Step 2
The next step would be to add a pair of pink pom poms. These would be the ears of the pet rock pig. Once that is dried, feel free to proceed with designing the face. The googly eyes should be symmetrical to each other and not too far up the face. The position of the cheek blush should also be appropriate to make the pet rock look a little more realistic.
Step 3
After attaching the eyes and the ears, you can proceed with designing the nose and the mouth. For the nose, you start with a big circle and then add smaller holes in the middle for the nostrils of the pig. The mouth of the pet rock can be whatever you want it to be. You can also use a variety of other acrylic paints to make your new pet rock stand out.
Step 4
When all the additional painting is done, simply spray everything with a sealant, including the backside of the pet rock and you are all done.
Googly eyes projects
The great thing about these googly eyes projects is you can easily find the materials you need from any craft supplies store.
The cost is never too high and you can also combine what you already know of crafting with existing projects to make them stand out even more. What’s more, is that even a small child can help with these projects. For example, you can ask your child to paint or glue things onto the canvas or help you dry them out.
Your child can also help select the projects that he/she thinks are most interesting. This is the best part, in our opinion. When your child can pick the projects that he/she likes, he/she will find crafts more interesting, and your child will become even more engaged with the idea of working with his/her hands.
