KiraKira's glass cabochon eyechips

[KiraKira]

What can I say except that I like to mess around with doll eyes? As far as stock eyechips go, I really like the foiled ones--my favorite stock eyechips are the ones from Hash, Horizon and Chill. Pretty! I don't really go for the ones that are overly painted and look really...plastic & fake. Those don't do anything for me.

And with all the money I've spent on glass cabochon eyes from various sellers on etsy, I figured I'd just bite the bullet and try to throw together some of my own. They turned out OK...although there are still some issues that I haven't completely worked through.

Here are the things I used...
*silicon based glue; I used E-6000
*12mm glass cabochons
*eye designs from google images search, printed out on photo paper
*1/2-inch circle punch cutter


Finding the right glue was probably the trickiest part for me. It obviously needed to dry clear and have the ability to stick to glass. I tried Elmer's glue, since it does dry clear, but in making the eyes, it dried kind of hazy...giving the eyes a dull, cloudy, cataract-look. Not the look I wanted. And the glue wasn't effective in sticking the photo paper to the glass--it peeled right off. My next attempts involved Duco Cement and Crafter's Goop, but those also didn't work too well in sticking the eye designs to the glass cabochon. I finally went with E-6000, which is oozey, and sticky but also really noxious. So if you use E-6000, be sure it's outdoors or somewhere with a lot of ventilation.

For paper choices...I went with photos printed out at Costco. It's easily accessible, won't break the bank, and the colors wouldn't smear like when I tried making eyes using my own inkjet printer--wet glue plus inkjet printer ink equals a smeary mess.

Here are the eye designs all cut out with the help of my 1/2" circle punch cutter. You could definitely cut the eyes out using scissors, but the circle punch cutter makes it faster and easier.



I put down a piece of waxed paper because I didn't want to get the E-6000 on my table. Squeeze out a little blob of E-6000 silicon based adhesive on to the waxed paper. It's really sticky and gets all over the place. You'll need a small tool to spread the E-6000 on your glass cabochon--I was hoping for an orange stick for pushing back fingernail cuticles, or maybe a toothpick. I couldn't find either of those readily in my home, so I just used a drinking straw. Low tech tools, yay!


Then you just dip your tool (toothpick, straw, orange stick, etc) into the puddle of E-6000 and spread a thin layer on the flat surface of the glass cabochon and press it down onto the eye design. Alternately, you could spread the adhesive onto the photo paper eye and then stick it onto the cabochon, whichever method works for you. It helps to have a wet paper-towel around so you can clear off the glue from your fingers...


This photo shows the paper design on the left and the same eye design with the cabochon stuck to it. Notice that the glass cabochon is domed in the middle, and as such, it causes a magnifying effect. It makes the pupil look larger.


Here are the ones I made yesterday...the glue needs about 72 hours to cure fully.


Sometimes the glue doesn't dry well. I am not sure what causes this problem exactly, but sometimes you will get air bubbles in the dried glue. I don't know if you can see the tiny air bubbles in the photo, but they are definitely noticeable in person, and it's not attractive.

In addition, sometimes, you may just be unlucky and get a bad batch of cabochons with the air bubbles inside the glass. Nothing you can do there but use another cab.

But here are the eyes in some of my dolls:
Tekka-Maki


Koto


Hiroki


Tifa


Taiyo & Cloud


Hinata


Group shot of the dolls and their new eyes