5 Easy Ways to Make Minion Goggles or Glasses
There are many easy ways that you can make a pair of minion goggles or safety glasses to go along with a costume for the Minions from Despicable Me.
Their goggles—either one-eyed or two-eyed—are probably one of the minions’ most identifiable feature. We don’t really know why the minions wear their signature safety glasses. They must have pretty bad eyesight, or get into a lot of mischief (which we’ve seen in the movies and the shorts), so they do need to protect their eyes.
Psst – If you want to see what a goggle-less minion looks like jump to the down the page.
Of course a yellow minion costume or an evil purple minion costume would not be complete without their signature goggles or safety glasses, which may be their coolest costume accessory.
In looking at many of the different ideas for making minion goggles, some common ideas came up for making your own pair of safety glasses. I’ve pulled the easiest of them into this collection of 5 Easy Ways to Make a Pair of Minion Goggles.
We found ways of making goggles using cardboard tubes, toilet paper rolls, canning jar bands, and using yarn to crochet a pair. For the paper version I’ve included links to one of my favorite minion goggles, the downloadable printables that were available for both Despicable Me and a slightly different version for Despicable Me 2.
Psst – If you want to get premade Minion Safety Glasses or my personal favorites, Steampunk Styled Welding Glasses, go to the bottom of the page.
Basic Instructions to Make Minion Goggles
Making a pair of one eyed or two eyed safety glasses so you can look like your favorite minion is pretty easy if you follow some basic instructions.
To make a pair goggles you need:
- The lens or lenses frames.
The lens(es) frames (the outside of the glasses) can be made from cardboard rolls, poster mailer, Styrofoam cups, canning jar bands, 2.5 to 3 inch sized locknut. - The silver coloring.
If the lenses are not already silver (like the Mason Jar bands or the locknut) then you need a way to turn them silver with paint, spray paint or silver/chrome Duck tape®. You could also wrap the lenses in tin foil. - The goggle band.
A black band using 1 inch black elastic, straps with buckles or black yarn. If you want more of the two part effect use two 1/2 in sized elastic. - The attachment.
Attaching the lenses together and then the lenses to the band can be done with glue gun glue (hot glue), staples, a grommet (not recommended for children) or even yarn. - Extra Embellishment Bolts
If you want to add even more details around the edges of the minion goggle frames you can attach silver bolts (no need to paint) or vinyl bumpers/pads (need to paint) around the edges in six to eight places.
Cardboard Roll by Asolario, Postal Mailer by Cretweb and Gray Yarn by Paks. Royalty Free Use.
Canning Ring or Band by CJMartin. Creative Commons.
Fun Recycling or Upcycling Projects
One of the good things about many of these projects is that most of them can be made using materials around the house like cardboard rolls, toilet paper rolls, canning jar bands, Styrofoam cups and plastic bottles.
For crafters, it is likely that they may even have black elastic, black straps and buckles and gray and black yarn available to turn into custom goggles.
For more industrial version of goggles using materials from you local hardware store (or hardware stash, rather than craft stash) take a look at the creative goggles from Ana at Tiki Crafts. She made her industrial safety glasses using PVC pipe, vinyl bumpers, straps, strap adjusters and weather stripping. Another more industrial goggle look comes from Bethany Mota who uses PVC pipe, silver spray paint, bolts, elastic and a glue gun.
1. Cardboard Tubes Make Large Goggles
Old cardboard tubes, especially the larger one are great materials for making the Minion’s large safety goggles. You can find cardboard tubes in a number of places and recycle or upcycle them into a pair of costume goggles.
- Lens(es) frames – toilet paper rolls cut into 1/2 or 1 inch rounds.
- Coloring – silver craft paint, spray paint, foil or Duck tape® (see video)
- Strap/Band – 1 inch black elastic
- Attachment – hot glue or staples
Look for cardboard tubes. You can find them as
- Postal tubes or mailing tubes for posters
- Cardboard rings from used up masking tape or Duck tape®
- Cardboard tubes from cotton or bamboo yarns
Once you have your tubes, decide how many lenses you are making—a one-eyed minion or a two-eyed minion. Cut the tubes into the desired thickness for the lens, generally between 1/2 to 1 inch and paint or cover in foil or silver/chrome Duck tape®.
If you are making a two-eyed pair of safety glasses for the minions, you need to join the two lens frames together with hot glue or staples (if the staples will work with the cardboard). Attach the band or strap and you have a custom pair of minion goggles.
P.S. You can also use Styrofoam cups and cut them at an angle and paint them the way they did in this DIY Yellow and Purple Minions Costume on YouTube video by Celis Karla English.
Cardboard Postal Tube and Duck Tape® Goggles
Vanessa Ortiz shows how she made Minion Goggles using silver/gray Duck Tape®, large poster mailer, scissors, glue gun and black 1 inch elastic.
If I was making this version, I would probably work with smaller (thinner) amounts of the Duck Tape® so it was easier to work with and then staple the elastic in place instead of using hot glue.
Since Duck Tape® may be one of those items typically around the house, it is an quick way to cover the cardboard rings. By far the easiest way to make an adjustable head band is by using 1 inch black elastic and then gluing or stapling it to the lens frames.
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2. Paper Rolls Make Cute Smaller Goggles
If you want to let the kids help in making their costume, this version is a good recycling project and a kid-friendly one.
Since these goggles are smaller and more decorative you may want to put these smaller safety glasses on a yellow beanie, the way that Marie from Make and Takes does as part of her Despicable Me Minion Costume.
Materials needed include:
- Lens(es) frames – toilet paper rolls cut into 1/2 or 3/4 inch rounds.
- Coloring – silver craft paint, spray paint, foil or chrome Duck tape®
- Strap/Band – 1 inch black elastic
- Attachment – hot glue or staples
Decide if you need one or two lens frames. Then cut the toilet tubes into the desired thickness for the lens, generally between 1/2 to 3/4 inch. Paint by hand or spray paint the frames gray or cover in chrome Duck tape®. One plus of using the tape with the toilet paper rolls is that being thicker the tape will help to stabilize the frames. (Foil or Duck tape® are good kid-friendly options for covering the cardboard rolls)
If you are making a two-eyed pair of safety glasses for the minions, join the two lens frames together with hot glue or staples (the staples should work with the thinner cardboard).
Attach the band or strap and you have a custom pair of minion goggles.
3. Jar Bands and Black Elastic Make Metal Goggles
These lid bands might even be something that you have around your home (or your grandmother’s home) if anyone is still into canning. If not, then you can easily find them with just the lids and the bands like these Ball brand lids on Amazon.
To make these goggles you need similar materials to the other projects.
- Lens(es) frames – Any brand lid bands
- Coloring – none needed, since the jar bands are silver
- Strap/Band – nylon strap + buckle or 1 inch black elastic
- Attachment – hot glue or grommets
The biggest challenge with this style is figuring out how to connect the two lid bands. Laura Erickson from Playing with Scissors attached the two lid bands together using her handy grommet tool. This is not a child friendly craft since the grommet will give sharp edges. Another option for joining the frames is to hot glue the lid bands together, as shown by AJphothivanh in her video below.
Create strap or headband using a nylon strap and buckle (follow Laura’s instructions) or just attach a length of black elastic with hot glue.
Jar Bands, Glue Gun Glue and Black Elastic
AJphothivanh does a great job (i) demonstrating how to make goggles using mason jar bands, black elastic and lots of glue gun glue. You only need to watch to ~ 6:00 minutes to see how she makes her Mason Jar lid goggles. If you want to watch the rest, you can see how she does her minion costume.
4. Paper for Printing Out Despicable Me Minion Goggles
For both Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2, printable yellow minion goggles were available on their site as a PDF file to download. These printable goggles have been some of the best ways to get the single eye goggles and to get minion goggles for free (other than the price of printing on paper or on cardstock).
- Lens(es) frames – printed on paper
- Coloring – already on the paper
- Strap/Band – printed on paper
- Attachment – glue or staples
With these printables you can download, print onto cardstock and assemble into your own pair of single eye or dual eye minion goggles. You might even just want to use the goggle eye part and attach them to black elastic with glue, tape or staples.
I think that the goggles may have been taken down in anticipation of The Minion Movie, so I found copies and put them here as jpg images to print out.
Click on the images to get the full size.
Printables Goggles from Despicable Me – the Originals
To use download, adjust to full page and print on paper or cardstock. Cut around the edges. Look carefully for the small printed circles in the eyes and cut these out, so you can see through the paper goggles.
To make the paper minion goggles more substantial, glue to a piece of construction paper before cutting. Alternatively just attach the lens part to black elastic with glue, tape or staples.
Printables Goggles from Despicable Me 2 – Better for the Minion Movie
Since the Despicable Me 2 version do not have a Movie logo on the ear parts these paper goggles would work better for the Minion Movie costumes.
To use download, adjust to full page and print on paper or cardstock. Cut around the edges. Look carefully for the small printed circles in the eyes and cut these out, so you can see through the paper goggles.
To make the paper minion goggles more substantial, glue to a piece of construction paper before cutting. Alternatively just attach the lens part to black elastic with glue, tape or staples.
Note: If you are going to use the printables for the evil purple minion costume, color the yellow parts of the minion showing behind the goggles purple and also color the brown minion eyes purple to match the evil purple minion’s skin and eyes.
5. Yarn and a Water or Soda Bottle Make Yarn Goggles
Crocheting crafters will be happy to discover a crochet pattern for minion goggles. I think they are one of the cutest pair of goggles.
- Lens(es) frames – gray yarn
- Lens(es) – plastic bottles (for lens glass)
- Coloring – none needed since in the yarn
- Strap/Band – black yarn
- Attachment – sewing yarn pieces together
I found two different crochet patterns online and one with a knitted hat.
The first version is crochet out of gray and black yarn by Amiguruthi. She even includes ‘glass’ for the goggles in the design by cutting out the bottom of a large soda bottle.
- Find the free Minion Goggle pattern at her website, Amiguruthi.
The second version was actually made for an entire stuffed crochet minion. This version from Stephani at All About Ami (Amigurumi), is a very detailed picture tutorial. Look at her pictures to see how she assembled her minion goggles for her crochet Despicable Me Minion.
- Find the free Despicable Me Minion pattern at her website, All About Ami.
The knitted version actually is a pair of goggles knitted on a yellow beanie hat. This minion hat (with goggles) was designed by Maura Houston. Since the goggles have white knit lenses, they wouldn’t work well as stand alone safety glasses, but would work as a hat.
- Find the Minion Hat pattern for free on Ravelry
View of a Goggle-less Minion
In the trailer for Despicable Me we get to see an image of a goggle-less minion.
Summary
The 5 Easy Ways to Make Goggles include making them with
1. Cardboard Tube
2. Paper Rolls
3. Jar Bands
4. Paper
5. Yarn & Bottles
Pre-made Goggles
Official Minion Goggles
There are different goggle versions from the official Despicable Me Minion Goggles to the right. You can even find officially licensed pre-printed paper ones if you don’t want to print out your own.
Another option is wearing a pair of black rimmed glasses. This is a popular look with the tween crowd.
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Note: The official versions are for only for the yellow minions. If you are going as the purple minion color the yellow ones purple.
Steampunk Safety Goggles
If it is possible to have a more ‘grown-up’ version of the Minion costumes, one way to do that is to upgrade the safety glasses/goggles. My personal favorites are the cool, steampunk versions like the Vintage Steampunk Welding Glasses or the futuristic ArcOne “The Fly” Safety Goggles
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Related Pages
Yellow Minions
Once you have your goggles done, to help get the rest of the costume finished too, we have pages on how to easily putting together your own yellow minion costume using (mostly) materials at home.
- DIY Yellow Minion Costumes a.k.a. the Silly Ones (from Despicable Me)
- DIY Yellow Minion Costumes for the Minion Movie
We have versions for the original Despicable Me Minions and for the ‘new’ (actually time-wise older) Minions circa 1968 from the Minion Movie.
Purple Minions
For those, like me, who like the crazy purple minion, we have information on this site for making a costume and how to do purple minion makeup and hair pages so you can create your own unique minion costume for Halloween or any other time.
Our Pinterest Board for DIY Yellow Minion Costumes
To share our ideas and inspiration for making your own yellow minion costume and to collect ideas from other Minion fans we have a Pinterest board especially for the DIY Yellow Minion Costume Ideas and Fun. Be sure to pop over to Pinterest and follow us for updates.
This board is a collection of Yellow Minion images from Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2 and from the Minion Movie that inspired the costume, hair and makeup. You can also find many of the creative ideas for DIY fun from drawings to food to parties with the silly yellow minions.
Follow The Costume Detective’s board DIY Yellow Minion Costume Ideas and Fun on Pinterest.
Minion Images from Despicable Me on Facebook.
Make — Modify — Minions