#beany boo

[thylacines-toybox]

Hey, I found a beanie boo that I liked the design of but I can't stand those giant uguu eyes. Do you think it would be possible to replace them with smaller safety eyes akin to the old beanie babies? If yes, do you have any advice?

I was gonna answer this in a normal way, but then I got curious about trying it for myself and thought I might as well demonstrate!

So, I went and picked up a guy from the supermarket. The selection there was pretty barren today but I found a decent test subject:

Eye replacement procedure below!

(First of all, to my friend who loves beanie boos, I am so sorry for this lmao)

So! First I opened up the closing seam on his back. However, I found an extra mesh barrier inside! Clearly this is to prevent bean escape since this is the most likely seam to accidentally pop open through play. This would be a bit annoying to work around so I just sewed it back up and went in the back of the head instead…

Opened and unstuffed the head…

…And turning it inside out to get to the backs of the eyes. Whoa, these plastic washers are the biggest I’ve ever seen!! Cutting through them will take some work!

Please be very careful of your fingers cutting through these!! Be careful not to cut the fabric around the eye too, but mostly be careful of yourself!

Anyway grrrrrrr attack attack slice slice grrrr

They’re out! With a little glue I think the washers would be able to hold on perfectly well again. I’ll keep these eyes to reuse on something where they’ll be a bit more proportional!

The washers on these eyes are particularly cup shaped, fitting around the back of the eye and holding the fabric tightly against them. Now that the eyes are removed, this has left imprints on the fur!

Plenty of brushing and rumfling will help to fix the creased and flattened areas of fur, and wetting the fur or gently steaming over a hot cup of water should help too. It might take a little time!

(Also, I did make a little cut in the cheek while removing a washer, oops! No worries, that can be stitched up.)

Now we can try on a few new eye styles! Restuff the head for now so you can see how they’ll look.

I have a few sizes of solid black, from teeny dots to absolute tbh creature…

These blue eyes were a little scary… no thanks!

I even have some glittery ones like the original, but smaller! Pretty nice actually!

And even some googly eyes hehehe!

But my favourite eyes were some basic 9mm black ones! They are placed a little funny here, but the position will change a little bit…

The holes left by the original eyes were very big, so a couple of stitches are needed on each one to tighten them up to fit the new eyes. I stitched the top outer corners, to move the holes down and inwards a bit. If you wanted, you could even sew them closed completely and make new eye holes elsewhere!

Unstuff again and pop those new eyes in!

Restuff! You might actually need to add a little extra stuffing, as the fabric not being so pulled around the eyes any more will mean it is a little ‘baggier’.

Then sew the head closed again and that’s about it! The fur is still a little creased around mine, but I’ll keep working at it and it should become less visible.

To add a tiny bit more shape to the big round head, I also did a touch of threadsculpting. I ran a thread from the corner of each eye to below the chin and back, just pulling the eyes in a tad more. You might decide you don’t need this!

And there we go! Hope you’ll try it yourself!

[soothedcerberus]

Hello! My friend's dear dog is having to get surgery :(

LINK TO GFM🌻🌻

I'll be taking small Pokemon watercolor requests for d0nations of $15 or more (please dm me proof of d0nation!) like these: ⬇️⬇️

All reblogs and d0nations are greatly appreciated! 💖

[tartintart]

Babies 🫶

[w0rmsprite]

trickster terezi design i did for dailytricksters on twt !! I really like what i did here i thought you guys might too

haha i hope its ok to post here its been like a month or so :^

[irlbeanieboo]

it’s been SO long since i’ve plushie posted but me and marcel went out earlier!!!

while marcel wasn’t the most helpful for paddling the boat, we still saw lots of beautiful sights including ducks and a turtle! afterwards we sat down and had dip n dots and watched the ducks and geese. :D

[novuit]

I missed drawing Feliciano and his dilated orbs... <3

[duckysden]

Toy Friend Introduction ;

Loco the giraffe! 🦒🍳

Brand: MVP Brand / Winkeez Acquired: bought

Silly little guy : )

He loves the outdoors and breakfast foods

[plusie]

[autisticdreamdrop]

you are not a burden.

you are loved.

[xxx-ang3l-w1th-a-sh0tgun-xxx]

it's not a want it's a need

[skullguts]

Idk he just looks and reminds me of a beanie boo I think…

[biceroni]

Wasn't a fan of the Beanie Boo axolotl's design, so I modified it a fair bit! Made it more accurate to the real life guy

[semiferalstreetcoyote]

not to sound like a boomer but i wish ty would keep making plushies that are actually like. cute

[thylacines-toybox]

Hi! I collect plushes and especially beanie boos. Do you have some in your beautiful collection to show?

Boos just aren't my thing I'm afraid! I have but one, and, well... I un-Boo'd his eyes. (Here's the post about how I did that, for those interested.)

I can share all of the beanie babies and buddies I currently have, though! I've had more in the past, but have gradually downsized to just keep faves!

[oodlefurb]

Has anyone coined a term for this phenomenon/aesthetic? because it's been a trend across all girls toy design, not just plush, and seemingly kicked off in the late 2000s to early 2010s

Littlest Pet Shop is the earliest example I know of

Compare 90s Littlest Pet Shop vs the 2005 reboot vs 2010 era toys. The designs just trend more cartoon-y and rainbow-y over time

FurReal Friends were another victim, with a sharp shift happening around 2012 towards big googly eyes

And we can't forget the Beanie Babies/Beanie Boos! The Boos launched in 2009

Even the Ubisoft Petz games took a swing at this style for a couple games, though it failed to save the brand lol

Build a Bear admittedly still offers both, but the Honey Girls line is still a good example of the phenomenon in action

And of course we can't forget our friend the Furby, just the latest victim to this phenomenon.

Now this probably just a case where one brand started using this aesthetic, got successful, and everyone else started copying it to the point where it's now the default. Probably with a big pinch of "toys are being targeted to younger and younger kids" thrown in as well. And maybe it really does test better with kids, idk. But I know when I was a kid, I would have picked the more realistic one, every time.