Safety Eyes Knowhow

Hi guys, welcome to our live event. This is kind of a special live event today. Normally I do some sort of tutorial or actually crochet during these live events, um, but today we're just gonna be doing like a little show and tell about safety eyes. So I got all my little friends here to help me out. Um, I've got a whole bunch of little critters here, so I'm gonna show you, um.

Lots of different types of safety eyes we're gonna talk about how they work and then I am going to show you some um extra tools you can use to put your safety eyes together because I know that that is something that hurts people's hands and people find it very difficult um so welcome. I'm glad that you guys are here um. So I have been designing Amaromi for many years and it is one of my absolute favorite things to make in crochet because you work on something and you want to have like you wanna hug it when you're done. I mean that's just how how magical is that that you can take like a ball of yarn, some little plastic bits, put it together, and then you have an emotional reaction to it. And usually when I'm working on these, you know, they don't really seem real and adorable and so cute and huggable until I get their faces put in um and a lot of times it's just like instant as soon as I get the eyes in I'm like, oh look how cute you are.

So I take a lot of time, you know, searching for different materials to use and I have come across many different. Kinds of safety eyes things have changed a lot since I started um designing Amaga room and it used to be super hard to find safety eyes. I mean when I first started, Joanne's, sorry, Joanne's isn't here anymore, but Joanne's used to have some just basic black ones and then they started having like a blue ones with pupil and brown ones with the pupil. Um, and you know things sort of trickled in a little more, but they never really stocked a wide range. And so I had started ordering my safety eyes from one company that I'm going to talk about in a little bit.

They're called Glass Eyesonline.com and their safety eyes are plastic, not glass, but they sell all sorts of doll stuff including glass eyes. That's why they have that name. Um, but I started ordering from them because there is an enormous amount of different styles, different colors, just different shapes, um, that they had, and then I was just so happy with them. I've just been ordering them for a super long time. But recently I started just kind of looking around again because I, you know, in the last 5 years or so I have found that Amagerummi has just like skyrocketed in popularity.

I mean it's like. Just crazy to me how like people know what the word Amagarumi is now, you know, like maybe not everyone, but people are starting to pay attention to that whole world of creating all these super cute critters and so because of that there are now all these options that were not available before and I was just like amazed at all the things that I was finding and I really wanted to share it with you guys. OK, so, um, if you guys have any questions or if you have any comments about anything, you know, go ahead and put that in the chat. I'd love to hear from you guys. Um, a couple things that I'm wondering about if you wanna give me a little more information about yourself, I'm wondering how you feel about this new thing where people, um, really are gravitating towards the no so Amagurui.

and if you've never heard of that before, there are ways to create. And Amaga roomie where you don't end up having to sew the pieces on um and I'm just curious if anybody like if anybody wants to chime in about how they feel about that if they feel like um that is the way to go and that's the only thing that they really wanna make um or if they don't mind, you know, sewing things on um I'm just curious as to how many people who are watching this are, you know, in one camp versus the other or you know if there's if you like all of them um so I'm curious about that. OK, so first, let's let me talk about the download a little bit. We've got a download. It's free to everybody in the download there are lots of links to places, sources where you can get the eyes that I'm gonna be talking about today.

My favorite places to shop for safety eyes and also for the safety eye tools that I'm going to be showing you guys in a little bit. There are. Also some you know information on safety eyes and some pictures on how they go together just in case you forget. I know for me when I first started using safety eyes I was not completely clear on how the backings went on and how you're supposed to do it and they never really come with instructions. I don't think I've ever seen safety eyes come with instructions anywhere.

Um, so you're just supposed to kind of know which way they go, how to put them together, so I do have a little bit of information on them talking about, you know, the different styles that you might come across and how they work, how to put them together and all that sort of thing. Um, we're gonna be going through all that in this, uh, live event as well, but there are, um, lots of, uh, lots of links and sources in here in case you are looking for something specific that I'm talking about today, so I have that information. OK, so the first thing I want to talk about are the shapes of the eyes themselves. So I'm not talking about like the pupil shape, but the shape of the actual plastic piece. So let me just pull out some examples here.

So we have this shape of eye like this. And that goes with this kind of washer. And there are also, this is a very similar shape. You can see it's, of course, it's smaller, but if, um, and then it comes with this washer here. So you can see when you look at these eyes, that the top is rounded here, but then they have these sort of flat edges on them, on the sides.

Let me put a little bit of white behind, maybe you can see. So you can see how they, they just sort of have like a thickness to them right here and they're pretty straight around this area right here. They have a straight side to them and then they have these backings that come up and they're kind of like a bowl shape. Now this is the kind of safety eye, these are called sinker washer or sinker eyes, um, because they sink the way that they're made, they sink down into your project so that the eye when they're fastened, they look flush. Let me show you an example of that.

So here, if you look at the side of the chicken, the eyes don't really stick out very far. They're like recessed down into The head itself and the way that that happens is because when you fasten these together through the fabric it's got this sort of bowl shape that comes up and pushes the fabric up to the top surface of the eye and it makes basically makes the eye sink down into the fabric OK so we've got these eyes these are called sinker eyes. We also have dome eyes, so let me put these back. We've got these dome-shaped eyes. So at first glance, it might not look very different than this, but you can see when you look at the side, here, let me grab an even larger dome-shaped eye.

When you look at the side, it's kind of like a mushroom shape almost like it's really like a, it's not a half dome, it's not quite that rounded, but it's, it's rounded from this flat surface on the bottom and it rounds from that corner all the way over. This one has this sort of little edge, this little lip or thickness to the bottom of it like that, OK? So when you fasten one of these eyes. This is, this has a different kind of a backing. Let's see.

Oh, here's the backing for this eye. Um, when you fasten this type of eye, it, it does not, you know, it doesn't go into a bowl shape. It doesn't sit down into the fabric. It sits kind of up above the fabric. So let me show you an example of what that looks like.

So if you look at this little ghost, if I turn its head sideways, so you can see, you know, looking down on it, you can see that it's rounded from here to here and the eye kind of protrudes, it sticks out, it's sitting on the top surface of the fabric there. OK, so this, this is what I call. A dome eye. I've also seen them, you know, other people call them that too. I don't know if there's another name, but basically it's sort of that mushroom shape.

It's a dome shape. It goes from the surface of the fabric, you know, up around that curve and back down. It does not sink into the, the fabric. Um, another, you know, there are lots of other random shapes actually too that I've been finding. Um, there's like flat kind of button eyes and there's other shapes that aren't even round at all, and we'll be getting into that a little bit more when I talk about the specifics that each um place that I've kind of been shopping for eyes has to offer, so we'll get into that a little bit more.

But these are kind of the main two shapes to look for sinker eyes and the dome eyes. So that's just gonna kind of affect the look of your project a little bit. So as far as the washers go, so that's the backing. So the way that an safety eye works is you have the safety eye, you put the post through your fabric, and then you put the backing on to hold it in place. So the, the sinker eyes, they come with like a bowl shape, um, you know, sometimes it's a little squared off like this, but it's, it's sort of like a cupped shape that your eye fits into.

The dome eyes, they come with. This type of backing usually, um, there are other backings that are a little bit more rounded, like this one here. But either way, um, you know, there's the plastic backings or there's also, as you saw a second ago, there's also metal washers or metal backings as well. So these are the most common style of backings that come with your safety eyes. They, they have different looks to them too, like, for example, let me grab one of these.

You know, the plastic might have a slightly different shape to it. Here's another kind of backing. Like that, but for all of these, um, actually let's let's remove the metal one for just right now. All of these plastic washers, these go with safety eyes that have this kind of grooves in it, like a little corrugated post. You can hear it probably, maybe more than you can see it, but it's um they have all these little grooves and so when you press these backings on, they kind of ratchet into the right spot and then they're very, very difficult to remove.

They're very, very stable and even though we call these safety eyes. They're actually not recommended for ages 3 and under, um, because it's a choking hazard. Uh, not only could you know, the, the backing could possibly crack, um, that's not a very common occurrence at all, but it's possible that the backing could crack and the eye could come out. Also, the more um prevalent issue is that. Babies or kids can chew around the eye and you can chew through the fabric and then the eye will come out and become a choking hazard.

So that's why I always recommend that you just embroider the eyes on if you're gonna be giving it to a child who's 3 or under, um, you know, if you, if you really have very tight stitches and you're using safety eyes and you want to give it to a younger kid. Um, just know that you kind of need, you just need to pay attention to, you know, the shape. You'd have to make sure they're not chewing on it. It's not getting worn down. You just kind of have to supervise them when they play with it.

OK, so, um. So we've got the plastic washers, and plastic washers, when you insert them, you're always going to be placing them onto the backing so that the widest part of the washer, so if you look at the side here, and this is maybe a little easier to see in the download, um. But There's a larger flat surface here, and on this side, it kind of has these little prongs that stick out on this side. So the prongs are gonna go away from the back of the eye. And the flat surface here is going to go toward the back of the eye.

So you just put it on, you put this through the fabric, you put that on the back, and you clip it shut, and I will be showing you this in just a minute. We'll be putting some eyes in in just a little bit here. So that's how those work. It's always the larger surface of the safety eye that is going to go towards the back of the eye. Even if it's more of like a cup shape now here this is actually a sinker washer, but I have seen backings um like this that are cupped and if you're putting this onto the back of an eye, even if it's not a sinker, not a sinker eye, you'll be putting the larger circumference towards the back of the eye like that, um, and this side will go, you know, away from the eye if that makes sense.

Like for this little, this little one here it's kind of shaped like that. Um, again, the larger, oops. The larger circumference side, that's gonna go to the back of the eye. This little lip here, that's gonna go away from the post, if that makes sense. Um, and then the other type, let's come back to these metal washer eyes.

So this is a dome eye with a metal washer. If you want to insert this, you will notice that the post here of our our eye is smooth, but it is, it does feel like, um, like it's almost a little like a rubbery or sticky kind of a plastic. I'm not really sure um if they coat it in something or if that's just how they always are, but every time I've used a metal washer, this almost feels tacky a little bit. Um, and there are no grooves in this, so it's just held on by these little prongs digging into. Into the post itself.

So, you push it on this way, the prongs should be facing away from the eye. Here, let me show you what this looks like. So, the prongs right now are facing upward. Like that, and this is very smooth back here on this side. The smooth side is the side that needs to go towards the back of the eye like that, OK, so that just gets pushed on with your hands.

These are, in my opinion, the easiest safety eyes to insert to put them together. Um, I almost, I've never had trouble putting these on with just my hands without any kind of safety tool at all. But I don't think they're quite as hard to remove. So if somebody is going to be pulling on the eye, you might want to consider using the kind of safety eyes that have these little ridges here. Um, instead, because those are extremely hard to remove.

They're very, very sturdy. These, I've never had a problem with them falling out or working their way loose or anything like that, but I just feel like after using them, I just feel like they're not quite as hard to take apart. I'm, uh, sorry, they're just not quite as hard to, um, they're not quite as solid once you put them together, sorry. Um, OK. So now that we've talked about like the different shapes of the eyes and kind of how they work, let let's just insert a few eyes so you can see how, how they work.

Um, so this eye. That I have in here. This is a sinker eye. So if you look, you can't even see the eye from the side. It's just when, or sorry, from the front.

This is going to be a chicken. You can't see it from the front. You can, you can only really see it from the side. This is sinking down into my project. Actually, I'm going to grab this other chicken here so it's not so dark and you can see a little better.

Here we go. Um, so we're going to place some sinker eyes into this chicken. And let's see. So I'm gonna be using these safety eyes. I got these from, these are from Amazon, um.

And these are sinker eyes, and they also come with these little, they call them papers, but to me they feel more like a fabric with glitter on it. The way that these work is they, they have the the post with the eye, and then they have the backing. And then they have these little what they call paper discs. Uh, let's see, let's do. Let's do some pink eyes on this little one.

I think that would be kind of fun. Just gotta get a matching one here. I guess we could do lighter. Oh, here we go. These are almost red, I guess.

We'll use those. So these are like, what, what give it the color and, you know, for kind of a more budget approach these eyes, you know, they come. They come with the papers separate usually um in a little bag, and then they come with the posts and the backings and I have ordered different styles from Amazon in the past and sometimes I've gotten just a giant bag of everything mixed together. um, the papers are separate. But they're not, they're not separated by size at all, and the backing and the eyes themselves are also not not separated by size, which was very frustrating to me.

I really need to take the time and kind of sort everything because I might use the wrong size backing for the wrong eye and then they and then it won't work, um, so I found that very frustrating but. The siner eyes that I have listed from you know, in the download with the link um from Amazon, they're these, and these were separated very nicely. They were also labeled with the millimeter size on them. They come with the specific papers for, you know, the whole set is all together in their own separate bag like these are 25 millimeter, these are 18 millimeter, um, and they were all sorted out for me so I don't have to worry about matching up the wrong all the wrong pieces together. OK, so these have.

A little piece of tape on them to keep the eye from getting scratched, and I'm gonna place this onto the back. And I'll do the same for the next eye. We'll see if these eyes are gonna be too big for my chicken. Oh, I think these will be cute. OK.

Um, Yeah, the, the, the eye size is huge, you guys. I have learned that over time you really need to play around with different eye sizes because it changes the personality of your critter so much. OK, so now I've got the sparkly bit on the back of the eye and you can kind of see that glitteriness. And these eyes, these eyes are, you can see the pupils are offset. This might be a little bit easier to see on this eye here.

I want to show you. So the pupil right here is not in the center of the eye, it is offset. So that is another style of eye that you can look for, and that is pretty fun because you can, you can put it into your project and make it look like it's looking to the side or that side or up or down, um, or kind of looking in towards if you put the pupils towards the center and slightly down, I think that looks super cute. So we've got uh that offset pupil. So I'm going to be putting the pupil part towards the front of this chicken, like this.

And slightly down. So the pupil is basically like right where my finger is. So it's pointing forward and down at sort of this angle. So you just place it wherever you want it to be and I always put both of the eyes in and look at it on on this, it doesn't really make any sense because this is a chicken, you can only see the eye on one side or the other. You don't have to look at, you know, the front of the face, but if it was something like a cat like this where you would see the eyes, you'd want to place them both and check, um, before you um before you insert them for real, you know, just poke them in there and um, then once you're happy with that, you can put the backing on.

So, this is a sinker washer, of course. So we're gonna have that bowl on the back to receive the back of the eye. We're gonna place that on. The backing right there and we can push it on. A little bit with our fingers, OK, and actually that might even be enough.

It's kind of already sinking in there. We'll see if it can go any further. If you are having a hard time though, that's where the, the, um, tools for inserting safety eyes come in. So, uh, here we have this little froggy tool. I also have this tool.

This is my absolute favorite, and I'll show you inserting another eye with this this tool in a little bit and I have also found this tool and this tool. Um, these were both from Amazon, and I'll be talking about those in a little in a little bit more detail um after we get these eyes in here. OK, so for this particular tool, this is basically just a way to have an empty space for the post to sit down into. So you can place that on the back of your work. So either you can hold it like this and push, you can put it down on the ground and push.

Some people, if you, especially if you have a carpeted floor, you can put the eye downward. On the carpeted floor and push on the back, but be very careful that you do not scratch these eyes. They can, they can scratch if you put them on, you know, like a hardwood floor or anything else. They were certainly not cement. You will, you will definitely scratch the eyes and it will be just so sad because you'll have this thing attached to your project pretty much for good, um, and it'll have a big scratch in the eyes, so that is very disappointing.

So I'm just going to push down on this a little bit. There we go. It already poked in. Now you can see it's recessed even more into the chicken. So this, I love this little tool.

I was actually surprised at how great it works. I wasn't quite sure because it was sort of a large circumference. I thought, well, what if you're putting a safety eye in something small like this? I can't fit that in there. But usually you can kind of wiggle it out of the way, just like I did, move that out of the way and then push it in.

Um, but if you are placing safety eyes inside of something that's far in and you are not able to get this inside of it, that is something to think about. The width of this tool might not allow you to do that. So that's the one drawback that I can think of for this, but I can, I've used, I can use this for almost any style of Ama grooming that I've made so far. Oh, Diana's got a comment. I have a crochet lookalike.

I've crocheted look alike dolls for my daughters and they love and appreciate them. I use the blue safety eyes to match my daughters and cute clothes for them. Oh, that is so cute. I love that. That is something that's really cool too, you know, like when you are making your own toys for kids you can you can make them look exactly how how they look or how their imaginary friend looks.

I mean it's just so great to be able to customize things so easily really that's really sweet. OK, so that that is how the sinker eyes work. You just put that backing on the back and pop it in. um, I will show you dome eyes on this little chicken in progress here. So let's see.

Maybe we'll do. Oh, I kind of like these. I think I'm gonna use these strate eyes. Um, they kind of are like a starburst almost. Let me see.

I use them in this cat. So if you can see what the eyes look like, they have all these little grooves in them. Um, and let me show you, if you look at the bottom. So these, this eye is from Glass Eyesonline.com. If you look at the bottom, it's got, like, you can probably even hear this.

It's got all these little grooves in the plastic, and that's what's creating all that really beautiful light coming out from the pupil. So these are kind of fun, um. So in order to. Here we are. OK.

So, in order to set these in, same thing, you're just gonna put it, push it between stitches wherever they need to go. And then put that flat, larger circumference onto the back of the eye, like this. And then you can push it on with your fingers, or if you're having trouble. You can use something like, you know, any of these other tools. Actually you can even use a pen cap like I use a Sharpie cap sometimes.

You just have to have a surface for the post to poke into and something larger to grab onto. So this is a different style of uh safety eye insertion tool. I bought this because I thought it would be handy because it's so long and you can reach into smaller spaces because I thought that would solve a problem, um. I, I think it's extremely sturdy. It feels very well made.

I've been using it for a little while. um, it's, it's very tough, but I, I, I feel like I don't have quite as much leverage with the safety eye tool as I did with the little frog and also this tool which is my absolute favorite and I'll talk about that in a minute but this one you can reach into smaller spaces. And you just want to make sure, oh, I need to use this end, I think. Because this, here's the other thing is I've got this little tiny end and uh quite a bit larger end and so I have to decide which one is going to work around this safety eye. So you want to make sure like you're not actually pushing on any of those prongs because I think I feel like they might break if you pushed on a prong too hard, just one prong.

So you want it to press outside of where the prongs are into this kind of flat area. So I'm going to use this end. And that poked it right in there. And you, I just, you know, usually push it in until it just doesn't want to go in any further. And that's what that little dome eye looks like on this chicken.

Very cute. All right. So, um, the one last I I wanted to show you how to insert is the kind with the metal backings. I think I've got, yeah, I'm gonna insert one over here. I've got a little OK, so these eyes are from uh a business called Sun Catcher Suncatcher Crafts, I think.

Let's see. Yeah, Suncatcher Craft Eyes, um, and this place had the most amazing safety eyes, you guys. I was so excited to find these, all these different styles, so many different colors, and they were just so beautifully made, um, so I was very excited to find this place. That was a recent find. That's kind of what kicked off my, my thought about doing this little live event so I could share all these things with you guys.

OK, so this is a little ghost in progress. It's going to be this little guy here. Um, and, and I'm going to be placing these eyes, let's see. I want them there. 12345.

I think I'm gonna put them up one more. Yeah. And so this, this is what I was talking about about always putting your eyes in first so you can really look at their expression. Oops, that is not a matching eye. Hold on here.

Oh, I think I'll be putting these ones in instead of the sparkly ones. I'll leave that one out. OK. So these little eyes, so from the same place, Suncatcher Suncatcher raft eyes, and these little eyes here have these adorable little metallic gold polka dots inside them, so they're like a lavender eye and they have these little tiny polka dots just like this, this little ghost has those as well. If you need like a closer view of this, there's a picture of this in the download as well so you can see what they look like, but there's just, oh, they're so cute.

So these are the ones with the metal backings. So once you're happy with how your eyes look. And I do, you know, I definitely recommend moving them around a little bit because it makes such a big difference in the expression of your creature, whether you put them close together like this, or if you move them out. Even just a little bit. Look at how different that looks.

So it's definitely worth. I'm gonna move 11 more over. There we go. It's definitely worth kind of playing around with it to see. What you, what you like the look of before you put the backings on.

I think that's where I'm gonna keep them. Um, so then, like I said before, the backings, the flat side is gonna be going to the back of the eye. We want the prongs facing away from the eye. So I'm gonna just push this out. And metal prongs.

I have no problem putting these on with my own hands, but if you have, you know, mobility issues or some other, um, you know, like your hands are sore from too much Amaga roomy making, then you may want to use, you know, another kind of a tool or something to push it on with. So I'm just gonna push these on. And those are nice and sturdy. I mean, really, you can pull pretty hard and nothing moves. So it's just that they don't have the little grooves to sit in.

So that's why I get kind of nervous about um. Well, not nervous. I'm not nervous to use these eyes, but, you know, if, if, uh, if you really wanted them to be super sturdy, I would opt for the kind with the little ridges in the back. All right, so that's what my little ghostie looks like with those metal, those metal washers on the back. They just sit right on the back like this.

OK, so now that we know all of those different styles, how to insert them, um, I want to talk about. Um, just a little bit more about how the eyes are made. So I, I mentioned, well, I mean, we're not, I'm not gonna explain like the whole factory process, but more about the color on some of the eyes. So this particular company, the Suncatcher Craft Eyes, they have. So many just gorgeous eyes and they're hand painted by the person who owns the company.

It's kind of a um it's a women run small business she hand paints all of her eyes and they're just beautiful. There's a you know a bunch of different links of some interesting ones to check out um I was very, very happy with the quality and um. Basically how everything uh was put together. When you are ordering eyes from a place, you may, as we talked about before, there are the eyes with the little paper backings, well they call them paper, but really it feels more like fabric to me. There's eyes that are colored in that way and then there are eyes that are painted have a painted backing.

So the ones the eyes that I just put in into the ghost. Excuse me, the backings of these eyes were hand painted, um, and so you don't have that little paper and I feel like In my opinion, the hand painted eyes, they just have a little bit more vibrancy to them instead of that paper for some reason, and I'm not exactly sure if it's the plastic or if it's just how it looks, but they just these eyes are so sparkly and they're painted on the back and to me they just shine so much more than the ones that have the paper. So here's eyes that have the paper on the back. I don't know if you can tell. Um, They still look great though.

I mean, this style still looks great. I, I don't want to discourage anyone from buying the paperback to eyes, um, but I'm just letting you know that there is a difference there and that might be something that you look into when you're ordering eyes, something to think about for sure. Um, so some people or some companies hand paint the backs of their eyes. Some of the eyes have those little paper discs, as they call them, and then there are other eyes like the eyes with the The little grooves in them that where the plastic or these eyes, these eyes are called amber eyes and and I use them on some of my little frogs. These ones here, they just have such a nice glow to them.

This type of eye, the colored part is actually in the plastic itself. So if you looked at the side of the eye, you can see above the pupil, it's a little bit orange here if you look at a side view, so. Um, there is no paint on the back of the eye. There also is not, um, a paper disc or anything like that. So just one thing to think about for the, you know, if you're getting eyes with a paper disk, if you are going to be making something and you expect that it's going to need to be submerged in water, washed in some way, uh, then just, you know, be mindful.

You might, you will want to do a test to see how that paper, fabric, glitter stuff holds up over time or if it gets wet. I've had no issues with it not looking good. I think it looks good. It's just, I've never gotten them wet, so I just wanted to put that little warning out there. So all of these eyes right here, these were all from the Sun Catcher, Suncatcher Craft Eyes Company.

That I ordered from us just um I ordered them online and there's a link in the in the download for that. So they've got round pupils with glitter they have all these cool dragon eyes with slit pupils like this and they have all these little hand painted little bits that come out. I mean it's just so beautiful and these eyes I've never seen anywhere else with this unusual shaped pupil. I don't know if you guys can see this, but this is like um maybe a toad or octopus or um. You know, it's got that or even even some frogs probably, it's got that sort of a wider pupil that comes to the side.

They call them rectangular, but it, it's only sort of a rectangle cause it's a little more curved on top. Um, here is what they look like. In this little octopus here, but I had never seen these before and they just did such a beautiful job of painting them. Look at how shiny those are so cool, um, and this company also has a bunch of eyes that glow in the dark. These little polka dot eyes that I was showing you before, these glow in the dark.

I believe I'm pretty sure, yeah, these glow in the dark as well, these glittery ones also glow in the dark, so they just really cater to a bunch of really, really cool specialty eyes. Oh, we've got some questions. Is there any way to remove safety eyes after attaching the backing? I realized I placed one in the wrong spot on my project. Oof, yeah, that is a big bummer.

I have been able to kind of work them apart sometimes, um, sometimes they're so solidly attached so if. And you know, OK, maybe this is unhelpful and you'll just cringe thinking about this, but if for example you put your safety eye in to a project like this and you're able to unravel, you can unravel it to where your eye is. I have actually done this before. I unraveled it to where my eye was this I don't think this would work for syncher eyes actually now that I think about this. This really only works for um the dome eyes that don't sink into the fabric if you have a regular dome eye.

You can unravel it until the eye comes out. And then you can trap the eye back, if you can't get the backing off, then you might be able to get it off once it's out of there because you can wedge your, you know, finger or something in between and try to pry off the backing, it might help you. Um, otherwise I have one time I did have that same problem. I did end up unraveling it, pulled the eye out, and then I laid the eye in as I was making a stitch around it and kind of forced the, the yarn to go in between the backing and the eye. I have actually been successful with that, um, but you don't, you're not always going to want to unravel your project and sometimes you put the eyes in, you know, like you'd have to unravel almost the whole thing to get to the eye, and that is such a bummer.

So what I would recommend. If you don't care if you're gonna, if. If you can take, if you can cut through the backing of the eye, you could try that, but you might cut a hole in your fabric, which would be very sad. Um, you can also try and When you have the backing on. If you can rock it to the side at all, that's the only way I've ever been able to get a backing off.

It was a backing that looked like this. And I pushed it down and I was able to rock it from one side and just barely what if you can get it slightly crooked sometimes you can get it off but these safety eyes, especially, you know, the sinker eyes, these eyes, they are very, very, very difficult to remove that backing on I mean it's a good thing because then you don't lose them. But yeah, if you have to be really certain of it when you put that backing on there and I've been in the in your shoes a couple of times and it is very sad. Um, if you have the metal washers, these you can actually pry off. You can just kind of wiggle them, eventually get them to come off.

It is a little tricky. You can also bend the prongs on these metal ones and pull them off, but then it makes it a little weaker. You can push them back down where they belong and put them back on. I've had some success with that, um, but yeah, it's just, uh, oh, I'm sorry. I wish I could say something that that is, uh.

Better news than that. So, um, Ava's got a question, what's the best way to measure where to place the safety eyes? OK, so what I do. What I do is I, um, I will count normally I'm working in Amaga roomy in single crochet and oftentimes in the round so you see those really nice kind of bumps coming down like bump bump bump bump. I will always kind of count how many ridges from the very top and then that's where I place the post and in my patterns I try to write things like place it between rows 6 and 7 from the top so it'd be like 123.

456 so it would be between this row and this row, and I place the post in there. If you're able to count it, then you can count it the same for the other eye and that way you can know it's in the right spot. Also you could just kind of follow the groove across and make sure both posts are going through the same groove if that makes sense. Sorry, I know I'm pointing to the 4. Do octopus have foreheads?

I don't know, um, but, uh, I'm, I'm really talking about down here, but I know you can't really see a groove in between our rows. That's why I'm pointing up here. But, um, as far as placing the eyes, I really, really recommend just putting them in and moving them around and like really take your time. I mean, it's so, so permanent once you get those backings on, it really pays off to just kind of move them around, move them closer together, move them further apart, move them up, move them down. Definitely try different sizes if you happen to have different sizes because that makes a.

Humongous difference in this like the way that your character looks, the size of the eyes and their positioning completely changes the expression. I mean it's crazy how moving it over by one stitch can change the expression of your character, but it does um so yeah I just recommend, you know, counting from some place on your project normally you can count, you know, from the top down to get to the eyes, but if you're able to count ridges on one side and count them on the other and then place them. Um, you can also try measuring or you can pin like pin a piece of yarn to the top and hold it in there, bring it down and, you know, maybe have a loop or a knot or something that you're holding onto that can mark one side of it where the eye is and then you can bring it over to the other side and then it'd be the same distance down from wherever you anchored it. So that's another way to see if they're, um, you know, even. But to me, looking at those ridges between stitches, that's the best way to go.

That's the easiest way. I hope that was helpful. Um, Scotty says, have you ever used glue to secure the eyes further? I've never. Used glue on the safety eyes that have the backings.

I've just never had a problem with them coming apart, so I've never bothered. I've heard that people do this. um, I would look into, you know, there are certain types of hot glue. I'm assuming you're talking about that or maybe it's super glue, um, whatever glue it is, it has to be able to work on plastic or if you have a metal washer, I don't know, that's metal and plastic together. I just think that that's gonna be hard to make sure.

But you could try that. Um, I have, however, used glue on. Let's see, do I have any here? I don't think so. I have bought super tiny eyes before for super tiny project, and they don't come with backings because that makes them too bulky on the inside.

So I have done that before where I've used a safety eye. It's funny that they're even called safety eyes since there's no backing, but it has a post. It looks just like, you know, this shape, but it's super, super tiny and you push it through the fabric and then you can put a little dab of glue on the back. I have done that before. I would never give that to a kid though.

It's kind of more of a thing just to sort of sit, you know, like something to like a little bit of decor. I mean you can. You can touch it. It's not the eyeball's not gonna fall out, but um I did do that before and I, I, I used hot glue on that project. I, I even just like used a little um toothpick and used that to get the hot glue off my glue gun because I was worried I would glob the glue onto it and it was so so tiny so I just scooped up a little glue and put it on the back and, and it dried and seemed very sturdy to me.

But I, I feel like, I mean, I'd be interested if anybody else has tried using glue also with their safety eyes, but I have, I've never had a problem with my safety eyes just popping out unless, and I've heard this from my friend Molly was telling me the other day, she has been. She ordered some safety eyes off of Amazon and the the backings were kind of too large. They didn't really want to stay on and I have noticed that the backings are a little bit like a softer plastic, like a more flexible plastic on the eyes that I order from Amazon. It's just different. Let me show you what I mean here.

Let's see. OK, so these eyes. Um, these eyes, so these are purchased on Amazon. They're like these cute little jelly bean eyes, these little smiley eyes, or they could be eyebrows or something else, um, but they come with backings, and these are very common backings, not just for these, I know these are weird eyes, but these are very common on Amazon eyes. I see these very often, this sort of darker tannish sort of color, but they, it they.

You, you can even see this kind of flex when I pinch it. This makes them very a lot easier to get on. So if you are having problems, um, you know, gripping things and you don't wanna buy a safety eye insertion tool, um, these backings are, they're pretty like they're, they're very sturdy, I think, but they're not as sturdy as the harder plastic ones like the ones from Glass Eyes online.com or from. The one that I, the backings that I got from the um Suncatcher. The ones that, so they have like these kind of plastic sinker washers.

Those are very sturdy feeling compared to the other ones. They don't flex like these do. Um, Yeah, so let's see. OK, so let's let's go back to Just actually just talking about these different companies a little bit. I just want to make sure that I get all this information to you guys, um, and I'm getting so excited about safety eyes.

I'm getting a little distracted about all my safety eyes. OK, so let's talk about, so we talked about Sungcatcher eyes. I showed you some different styles that they have. They have different, um, they use different materials to paint the backs of them so they look really cool. Some are.

Sparkly, some are like iridescent, some glow in the dark, some are these cool little dragon ones and polka dots, all kinds of different awesome things. Um, so, so that's a really great company. Another place that I, and I talked about this a little bit earlier, the Glass Eyes Online.com, that's a company that I've been ordering eyes from for like, I don't know, more than 10 years. It's been, um, they're just sort of my go to. They have a humongous selection.

Of dome eyes and they also have some flat ones and some very interesting like specific eyes like they have these little tiny frog, these little frog eyes with all the different like colors in them and they also have um doll joints, all kinds of if you're if you're into making dolls or soft sculptures and you need all those little kind of like moving parts or glass eyes, they do have that too. They have eyes that you can glue on. I would not recommend that for Amaromi, but they have just like a huge amount of different types of eyes for for crafts, um. But they don't have, as far as I know, they don't have sinker eyes. So if you're looking for syncher eyes, that would not be a good place to get them.

Maybe they will eventually, but they have like iridescent ones, they have color changing ones, they have glitter ones, they've got slit pupils, they have those amber eyes I was talking about that almost look like they're kind of glowing. Those are really fun. They also have um little specialty. Noses, they have, I don't have them, um, I don't have any of these right now, but they have like flocked noses, little plastic noses. This is the only nose that I had from them.

This is like a little tiny Hello Kitty nose, just a little yellow oval nose. They come in different colors. Of course, it doesn't have to be for Hello Kitty, but that's what I think of when I see this. Um, and they do have like little tiny hearts you can use for noses. I mean, or you could use them for eyes, which would be really hilarious, I think.

Um, but these are made just like safety eyes. They've got the ridge backing and a plastic back that slides on. They just have all these really interesting. Things they also have eyelashes like these eyelashes you can put on as another sort of layer underneath your safety eye or whatever kind of eye they you know you can place the, the post of the eye through the hole in the eyelashes thing and then they have eyelashes around. I've never bought those, but they, I'm always kind of tempted because they're so interesting.

Um, they have all kinds of cool things. The other thing which I keep bringing in here, they sell these. These are a fastening tool. This is just like. You know, the same kind of deal as this where you push it on with um you know, you just put this into the back of the safety eye but the thing I love about this tool so much is it fits in my hand and I can push on it like this.

This safety eye tool is great it's nice you know it can help you reach into smaller spaces and it's a lot better than, you know, pushing it with your hand but I feel like if you're if you're putting on a really stubborn back. It's so nice to have your hand right here being able to push into the back of your project and it's comfortable and these come in different sizes so I think this is a larger one. I don't know. I think they might come in 3 different sizes, but I've been using this for many years and I absolutely love this. um, it's my favorite way to put safety eyes in it's kind of my go to, although this little frog is quickly becoming my other favorite.

You have two favorites? I think so. Um, OK, so we talked about Glass Eyesonline.com, one of my favorite places. I do want to talk a little bit about Etsy as well because I found tons of little shops that do hand painted eyes on Etsy. I didn't, it never occurred to me to buy my safety eyes from Etsy.

I don't know why. I mean, I buy all kinds of things from there. I think it's just because I was used to ordering from, you know, the glass eyes online, uh, store, but these eyes. Let's see, these eyes are from a shop on Etsy called um Cujo's Crochet Creations, I think it is. Um, I did, actually, let me just double check and make sure I'm saying that right.

Let's see, Cujo's crochet creation, sorry, I think I said that wrong. um, so it's just a little, you know, small shop on Etsy, and they specialize in safety eyes and their safety eyes are gorgeous. They are, I think they are all synchronized so if you're not looking for synchronized, not really, you know, I wouldn't look there, but they're they're just so beautiful and I think, I think they might all be offset pupils as well. I'm not 100% sure on that. But all the ones that I bought were offset pupils, meaning they're not centered in there.

So this one has this really beautiful glitteriness in it. This one is kind of a color changing iridescent looking eye. If you look at it one way, it's sort of brown and another way it's like a reddish pink color. They might be kind of hard to pick up on camera, but they're so beautiful. And here's two more colors.

This one is green and blue, like when you look at it. Um, and then this one is a really pretty pink sparkly, um, just really beautiful. So I was very happy with the quality. These are all siner eyes like I said, with the sinker backings, um, but there are tons of other shops on Etsy selling safety eyes, so. They're a little bit, um, they cost a little bit more than if you're buying them on Glassiceyonline.com and or you know some Amazon eyes you can get for cheaper than that, but it, I just feel like it's worth it for that extra.

I mean they're just so beautiful. If you're just looking for a very specific thing or you just really want to have like the most beautiful eyes, I would definitely look there. I was amazed. Um, they also had. Uh, they had a listing for custom eyes so you could tell them what, what color you wanted.

So if you are interested in having specific color and you can't find it anywhere, um, you know, you could just order it from them and it really wasn't, it was a very. Um, it was not expensive at all considering it was a custom thing. I thought, I thought that was a great deal. OK, so that, um, OK, so the last shop that I wanted to talk about is Amazon. Um, Amazon has a ton of different things now for safety eyes.

One thing though with Amazon is that you have to really pay attention to what exactly you're getting, um. And I did write these notes in the download in case, um, you know, in case it's helpful. Um, to go through these later, but. First of all, when they're listed, it'll say something like 72 pieces and you'll be like, wow, that's a lot of eyes, but really it's they're talking about every piece in the eye. They're talking about, I don't think they count the papers separately if it comes with papers, but they're talking about one eye is one piece, one washer is another piece, the other matching eye is one piece, the other washer is another piece.

So it's really 4 pieces to make up one pair of eyes. So just know that when you're buying. Um, also. Uh, I thought, oh, I'll save some money. I'll buy them on Amazon.

And then I got this bag of eyes that is just all the sizes all together. All the papers are in a separate bag. They're all together too. Yeah, you can definitely sort them out and it's fine, and I'm going to use them and they seem like decent quality, but you know, if especially if you're newer to using safety eyes, you might not know which size backings go with the posts, um, uh, and if you're wondering that. Instead of comparing.

The posts, or sorry, instead of comparing the eye size. Here, let me show you what I mean here. So it's just a little tip in case this happens to you, and you order a bag of random eyes, um. So here I'm gonna peel this off. Those are just on there to protect the eyes and keep them from getting scratched, which is nice.

Um, so these two eyes, very different sizes. And if you look at their posts, the posts are what is going to tell you which backing to use, OK, because there can be. Eyes that are much larger. Let's see if I can find a big one in here. OK.

OK, here we go. Yeah, so there's only There's only 2 different size of backings that come with these eyes, and there are 3 different size posts at least. So you can see that there's You know, like how, how do you know which backing to put with which eye? So I feel like that's a little bit of just sorting them out, put the big one big backings with the biggest eyes first, and then kind of work and then the smallest eyes with the smallest backings first and then see what's left over and how many and count them up. That's how I'm going planning on doing it.

Um, but yeah, definitely look at the post that is more important to matching up the washers to as opposed to the actual size of the eyes if that makes sense because the posts are made to a certain diameter to fit um sorry, the washers are made to a certain diameter to fit a certain diameter of post if that makes sense. So the other thing about this, I ordered. When I ordered this bag and I got a random thing, I actually ended up ordering a bunch of bags. You can also order sinker washers just separately. It doesn't come with the eyes, so I thought, OK, this can go with my these eyes.

Oh, I forgot to mention these, this would make a lot more sense. To now, um, these come with these flat backs, but there's sinker shaped eyes. Remember how we talked about the difference between the dome shaped eyes and the sinker shaped eyes? Well, these are like a sinker shaped eye and a flat back. So what happens when you have that is the eyes sit on the top surface of the.

Of your Amiga roomy, you can see it kind of sticking out and protruding and you see that sort of flat side which I feel like on a sinker eye it's a little bit weird to see that as opposed to on a dome shaped eye because that comes down and meets the fabric, but this has that sort of ridge to it. So I realized even though they sent me these what look like sinker eyes with flat washers, they're not going to be sinker eyes. I thought I was buying syncher eyes, but. The eyes are synchers, but the backs are not, so therefore they don't sink down. So make sure you're looking at what the backings actually look like if you think you're getting syncherized.

And you can buy, I did end up buying these syncher backings, um, and they work just fine with these eyes, so that's what I'm using and that it's working out great. Um, I actually did that with this one. So I put on it one of those extra backings, um, that I ordered separately. And it sinks down in. OK, so let me talk a little bit more about the Amazon eyes.

OK, we talked about these, these have the papers and they kind of stick up. These are those spirated eyes that kind of have those little lines coming out. These little jelly bean eyes I talked about those earlier. They're so cute and smiley and fun, and I've never seen those before. These eyes are sinker eyes from Amazon, and this is the one that I linked in the download because I was very happy with this.

It came with the appropriate washers to make it a sinker eye. They seem like good quality. They are using the paper backings, but I, I think that they do look pretty good. I think they look great. I'm very happy with how they look.

And then they had these super cute little kind of kauai eyes or um you know, little anime looking eyes that I had never seen before. These are just so adorable. They're kind of um flattened here so they don't really stick up very far. They look so cute and so comical and just silly and I thought they were perfect for my little cat cubes, um, so those are kind of fun too. Um, yeah, so those, and then of course Amazon, oh, and I can show you, they do, you know, they sell them in large quantities.

These are those little Kauai eyes. They come in a nice little box, so these were all separated by size, although the backings are some of these are different sizes and it's confusing as to which ones they belong to. So I'm going to have to do a little bit of um notes, I think probably on the top just so that I know what goes with what. Um, and then also, of course, you know, if you are just looking for plain black safety eyes, which I use all the time, I use them so often. Here's a little chicken in progress with just those little tiny black eyes, so cute.

They do have tons of those. They're very, very inexpensive. They have them sorted by size again here, um, but the backings, they have, they stay on fine. The ones that I've gotten stayed on fine, um, but they just aren't quite, and they're, they're pretty easy to get on. Um, but they don't seem to stay on quite as well as those more rigid ones.

Actually, I should. I'm gonna show you. How to use this other tool? By using these eyes, let's see. Oh, maybe I'll try with this matching eye.

It would be kind of weird if this chicken had two different colored eyes. Let's see here. Those kind of match. These are from two different shops. That that'll be OK.

They're on the two different sides of the chicken's head, so I think it'll be all right. Um, so I'm gonna place my eye in there and put the backing on with the flatter side to the back. The little prongs that stick out are going to go away from the back of the eye. So I'm gonna place that on there. And then I want to show you this little tool.

So this tool, I saw tons of these on Amazon and I was so curious about it, and I thought to myself, I don't know if I trust that tool because it really doesn't seem like it's gonna be very strong and you know what? I haven't broken it yet but I definitely do not feel like this is the most stable tool. I would not try to put uh a sinker eye in here. I just don't think that's gonna work. I mean unless it's a really small one and your fabric is very thin or very squishy, um.

But these work, you know, kind of like little tongs or like a grommet tool, little eyelet tool. Uh, you just, there's a rounded section right here. That's where the actual eye, the top of the eye goes in and so far I haven't scratched anything. That was one thing I was a little concerned about, um, and then you just pinch it together and the post can go through this hole. So you just put it in like this.

So you get both sides in. I don't know if you guys can let me move this out of the way here. And then you just squeeze it together. Can you hear it? Here we go.

And it's inserted and it's like that motion, it makes it. It feels like you're not pushing as hard for some reason when you're pinching it together as far you know, instead of pushing it on. So I have really been happy with this tool, much happier than I thought, um, for using smaller eyes like this so that I would say like no larger than 1516 millimeters. I would say you can use this tool, um, and especially for the little tiny black eyes that are so hard to hang on to, they actually have this little um. This little conversion piece.

I'm not really sure what to call this, but you can place it in here if you need a smaller hole there for the backing to go through. So that kind of changes it and then to get it back out, you just push from behind here until you can get your fingers underneath it and you can pull it out and then you can store it in that little spot. So I, I haven't had to use it because I haven't really been using the tiny eyes and most of the tiny eyes I could just push on with my own hands. I don't normally have to use a tool like this for that, but. But I found this, you know, if you make a lot of amiga roomy and you use a lot of the smaller eyes, I, I feel like this worked pretty well.

If you're using sinker eyes or very stubborn backs, I would get something like this, um, or even like this. This I have used on syncher eyes, even though this looks like it wouldn't work very well. I just push it on the back and push it on and it seems to work fine, um. So I, I just always gravitate towards this, but now that I have this one, I'm very excited to be using this more too as well. All right, let me just make sure that I've talked about all little things.

I wanted to tell you guys and catch up here. Looks like there aren't any new comments. Um, OK. That's, that's about all I have to say about safety eyes. I can't believe I just talked about safety eyes for like a whole hour, but you guys, it is, it was just like a whole new world of finding all these cool things, and I just wanted to share them with you guys.

um, so I hope you guys have some fun making your Amager roomy, and I hope you get to explore some new shops and new places to find safety eyes. Thanks you guys so much for joining me. Bye everybody.