How to Make Green Leaf Minion Goggles
Two of the unanswered questions about the ancient or prehistoric minions is, “Why are they wearing goggles?” and “Why are their ancient goggles green?”
The answer to the first question may be one of those unsolved minion mysteries; the second answer may be a bit easier to figure out.
Their goggles are green because they have made the frames and the straps from leaves, the materials they would have had available to them in 65 B. C. E.
Their goggles look to be made from banana leaves, like the ones to the right, or Hawaiian Ti leaves.
For those who want to dress up like Norbert or one of the other ancient minions, you need to wear green goggles.
We’ve figured out several ways to modify or make your own leaf-covered goggles.
Banana Plant from VasantDave. Royalty Free Use.
Green goggles are one of the accessories needed for those wanting to dress up in a prehistoric or ancient minion costume. Since they aren’t available, we set out to figure a way to make green leaf minion goggles.
Make Minion Leaf Minion Goggles
There are two main ways to make a pair of prehistoric minion goggles, or the green leaf covered goggles.
The first (and easiest) is to take a pair of existing minion goggles or glasses and cover them with available green leaves, ribbon, fabric, felt, foamie or paper.
The second is to fashion a pair of minion goggles from one of the 5 Easy Ways to Make a Pair of Minion Goggles and then covering these goggles with green leaves, ribbon, fabric, felt, foamie, cardstock paper, or tape.
Leaf-covered Premade Minion Goggles
The easiest way to make leaf goggles or tropical goggles is to simply get a pair of regular goggles minion or others like the Arc One safety goggles or glasses below and then choose your favorite green items to cover the frames and band straps.
- Long natural or silk green leaves
- Green leaf ribbon
- Green fabric
- Green felt
- Green foamie
- Green cardstock or contstruction paper
- Green Duck Tape®
- Green floral tape (see next section)
The 1 1/2 inch Berwick Tru-Life leaves craft ribbon (above) looks a lot like the real life leaves and can be folded and used to create green leaf goggles. I’ve pulled together some of the other items that would work available on Amazon, if you don’t have access to real leaves.
If you have access to banana leaves or Hawaiian Ti leaves, these are probably the best type of leaves, but any other long natural green leaves would work too.
Take the green leaves, ribbon, fabric, felt, foamie or cardstock and cut them into long strips 3/8 to 1/2 inches wide for the frames, 3/4 to 1 inch for the band straps.
Using hot glue or double-stick tape to attach, wrap the green leaves around the frames and cover the band strap and glue or stick in place.
Remember if you are using natural and not artificial or silk leaves, they will wither and brown with time, so you can’t make the goggle part of the costume too far in advance, or expect them to last for too long.
Once the goggles or glasses are covered put them in the refrigerator until they are needed to wear. This will keep them from browning too soon.
Banana Leaves from MGDboston. Morguefile free photo.
DIY Leaf-covered Minion Goggles
The leaf-covered Minion Goggles can easily be made entirely using recycled materials like old cardboard tubes. The best ones to use are the large postal tubes or mailing tubes for posters, or larger cardboard rings used to give stability to yarn balls.
You want to have cardboard rings that can be cut into 1.5 to 2 inch thicknesses to create large goggle lens frames.
Note: It may be easier if you plan on wearing these goggles (or having them worn by someone else, to make goggles with for two-eyes like Kevin or Bob rather than a single eye, like Stuart just so it is easier to see.
In the video below Vanessa Ortiz shows how she made Minion Goggles using silver/gray Duck Tape®, large poster mailer, scissors, glue gun and black 1 inch elastic.
Adjust the materials from the How to Make Goggles (Despicable Me) video in making green minion goggles by using the following materials (some are the same):
- Large cardboard rolls or mailing tubes
- Duck tape® *
- Green crepe paper (roll or sheets), green masking tape (3/4 inch), strips of green felt, foamie, ribbon or
- Green cardstock (see above), natural or artificial leaves
- Green elastic 1 inch or larger**
- Glue and staples
** You can use black elastic, but then the black needs to be covered with leaves too. Using green elastic for the strap is a lot easier and faster.
If you just want green goggles you can use Duck tape®, masking tape or floral tape.
Green leaves or the green ribbon will make the goggles look more like the ‘real’ leaves.
To get the depth or many layers as though leaves have been wrapped, use real leaves, strips of thicker felt or foamie.
Making the Green Minion Goggles
- Cut the tubes into 1/2 to 1 inch rounds for the lens frames.
- Cover the rounds with green leaves, ribbon or strips of felt, foamie, cardstock, masking tape, Duck tape® or floral tape.
- Staple or glue the two tubes together.
- Attach green elastic with staples or hot glue on one side.
- Try on, adjust and attach to the other side.
- Embellish by adding a Bamboo knot skewers or cocktail pick.
You now have a custom pair of green leaf minion goggles, just like Kevin (Norbert only has a single eye).
See the DIY Norbert Ancient Yellow Minion Costume Ideas in the Norbert Green Leaf Minion Goggles section for more written instructions on making green minion goggles.
Related Pages
Yellow Minions
If you’d rather make a more traditional minion costume, we have other pages for the original Despicable Me Minion costumes and the new (retro) Minion costumes from the Minion Movie. You can also find several suggestions for doing your own minion make-up and hair and making your own minion goggles.
- DIY King Bob MInion Costume Ideas
- DIY Norbert Ancient Yellow Minion Costume Ideas
- DIY Yellow Minion Costumes the the Silly Ones (from Despicable Me)
- DIY Yellow Minion Costumes for the Minion Movie
- Yellow Minion DIY Hair, Hats and Makeup Ideas
- 5 Easy Ways to Make a Pair of Minion Goggles
Our Pinterest Board for DIY Yellow Minion Costumes
For more ideas and photos be sure to pop over to Pinterest and visit the DIY Yellow Minion Costume Ideas and Fun and follow us for updates.
Follow The Costume Detective’s board DIY Yellow Minion Costume Ideas and Fun on Pinterest.
Minion Images from Minions on Facebook.