Scented stuffed animals are an easy DIY project! I make stuffed teddy bears at Christmas time for a weekend marketplace.
To make these, you will need scented soy candle wax and a stuffed animal of your choice. The bigger the stuffed animal, the more wax it will take. To make many of these to sell at a craft fair, I go to the dollar store toy section.
Hi, Sharron here with down-home wicks and I want to show you the aroma hippos that I make. These are like the aroma bears or the wax-dipped teddy bears. These are a little bit bigger.
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I usually make the scented stuffed animal bears and I’ll show you how I dip them in soy wax, they’re scented room fresheners. They are a “no burn” and “no candle” but it’s the same principle and it’s a craft that you can do and sell at a craft fair or give away as gifts.
So, let me show you how I make them.
I do hundreds of these at the holiday time this is what a typical one looks like right here it’s kind of cute he’s real fuzzy he’s about six inches tall.
Today what I’m going to do is a special order and I’m going to carry these out. I have five left so I’m going to put him at my booth at the market. This is a hippopotamus.
See how cute he is. He’s actually quite larger. Let me show you here’s the regular bear that I do. These I usually can get four to six bears dipped per pound this guy is probably going to take the full pound.
Now whatever you do the plush animals you got to make sure that it’s not just plush that it has something for the wax to grab onto otherwise it’ll just all leak out. Now I have an old desktop. It’s a Formica table.
I used to put down the paper and I used to put down all kinds of other stuff. Because when I did these and as you can see I have cooling racks over them. I put these on after I dip them in and wring them out. I put them on here while the oil or the wax drains down whatever is extra.
And I had to have a way when you do hundreds of them to regroup and put the wax back and re-melt it and reuse it.
This is a GB464 wax, a typical candle wax. It’s a cold throw. These are not meant to heat up and you know you don’t need a warmer. You don’t light them obviously or anything like that so they’re really fun. You get we’re going to dip them.
You have to make sure that your wax is cooled off enough to where you can actually put your hands in it. The colder the wax is the harder it’s going to be and it’s just going to sit on top.
You want it to kind of actually soak in so you have to work fast once the wax reaches the temperature that’s cool enough for you to put your hands in it. Now you can wear gloves.
On the fragrance, I’m using it as Christmas cheer and it’s also skin safe so it’s not too bad. But, if you do a lot of these it’s going make your hands chapped so I’m going dip this hippo in the wax.
Soy wax can hold a higher fragrance load and because this is not meant to burn, you can add more fragrance oil.
Make sure you can see everything I got going on here and then make sure that you’ve got a container that’s going to be able to hold everything and as you can see this wax is probably 90 degrees. The GB464 has a low melting point that’s why I use that one. As you can see it gets really heavy. Sucks up a lot of the wax.
I’ve got five pounds of wax in here because I’m going do five of these and it takes a good pound. Now you can recover the wax. I take like a putty knife or a scraper and scrape it off the Formica. Looks nice. You’re going kind of fluff them back up.
They look really cute. People love scented stuffed animals. You have to work a little fast or sometimes I’m a little slower but I’ve got wax over on the side. His head is going to be a little heavy and they’re going to want to fall over.
Now as this dries just kind of fluff up. You can take a fork as this starts to cool off. Put him over here. You can pose them. We’re going to make him sit back just a little bit. Make sure his eyes are clear, want to see his little snout and he’s going sit there.
Now as you can tell, the wax really soaks into the fabric so you have to kind of squeeze it out. They’re (hippos) all harder to do because he’s a lot bigger. The scented stuffed animal bears are easier to do. It’s like almost wringing out a washcloth.
You dip it in and then you wring it out and then you let them dry. But these are the cutest things and I’ll show you how I package them and everything. Fragrance oil when I first got one of these was years ago I didn’t know the fragrance oil, so you can see. It’s leaky.
Now that’s what I’m trying to squeeze everything out of the scented stuffed animal hippo. I squeeze it all in one hand and then I can get most of the wax out. We’re going to recover the wax and then reheat it with a GB 464 once you’ve done that you can reuse it and reheat it in the microwave and it’s still okay I’m using this four-quart pan so I have room.
Like I said you’ve only got so much time then the wax gets too cool and it doesn’t soak it up as it should. It can be kind of messy so make sure that you’re prepared. You know it’s not like pouring candles and wax melts and stuff for me and it gets pretty messy and it’s probably only got enough three.
I do have more wax off to the side it’s just not cooled off. But I wanted to show you what I’m doing and I don’t want to heat this back up so I’m going to do the three here and then I’ll do the other ones off-camera. It’s going take me a while and then I’ll come back like I was saying.
How do you package scented stuffed animals?
I’ll show you how I’m going to package a scented stuffed animal because when I did this the very first time, it wasn’t easy. It was years ago someone gave one of these to me as a gift. They are just awesome gifts and I didn’t know and I took them off of the plate that it came on. DO NOT DO THAT!
It was actually like doily-covered cake cardboard and I put it directly on my jewelry box and it was cute I loved it. Well, when I went to go take the scented stuffed animal off the jewelry box, the fragrance oil disintegrated the finish on my jewelry box. So that wasn’t too good.
When you package these I put a warning on the bottom of the plate that says do not take off the plate because of that. When these start to air out all you have to do is heat them up again or dust them off with a cool hairdryer.
He looks a little sad, they’re kind of slumped over, but they’ll stiffen up and you can pose them. The heads are a little heavy but that’s okay these are going fast. I did order the hippos. I found them on Amazon and they were a little pricey.
The hippos are like ten dollars each plus shipping. The Bears are a little cheaper and I get the bears wholesale. You have to buy them by the case so they come out to be about a dollar apiece. Just consider that part of the cost of this.
How much do scented stuffed animals cost to make?
A scented stuffed animal costs about $2.50 to make for the small one. The scented stuffed animal (hippo) costs about $15 to make for the large one. Most of the cost for the hippo is on the stuffed animal but it took twice the amount of wax.
The scented stuffed animal bear cost about the same as it does for me to make an 8-ounce jelly jar candle. That’s how I priced it because it’s really hard to figure out how much wax it actually takes. I get about four to six of the little Scented teddy bears per pound and that’s how I figured it out.
Plus you know the cost of the bear and then, of course, your time in packaging so they come out. I sell these at a marketplace or at a farmer’s market, it’s indoors. I sell them for $5 each. I stock these between November and December and I sell them by the hundreds.
It’s very difficult for me to keep up if I’m doing these by myself but I wanted to show you how I do these and that’s basically all it is. All you do is put them out in the room and then it gives you that cold throw and it’s like an air freshener for your room.
People set these close to the Christmas tree or in their kitchen or in their bathroom can if you wanted to you could make these. I have these in Christmas cheer. You can make these in any fragrance that you want and people just love them.
So I’m going to get more wax out and then I’ll be back to show you the packaging. I’ll show you what the finished product looks like. He’s a little heavy. There you go. Isn’t he cute?
He’s not quite completely hard yet. It’s going to take probably 24 to 48 hours. Now, unlike soy candles, they don’t have to cure because you’re not burning them or anything. Over time the fragrance will cure with the wax just like a candle does but it’s not as critical.
I make sure that these have been sitting out now for a couple of hours. I’m going to put them in bags and I don’t want to mess them up. So I make sure that they’re relatively stiff. I don’t want to ruin them.
I put a warning label that it’s not a toy. You don’t want any kids or animals to come in contact with these. Because these are a little bit bigger (and I’ll show you the scented teddy bears) I took cake rounds. These are for an 8 or a 9-inch cake.
You could probably use anything that’s the size just to give you an idea 8 or 9 inches around. It was just easier for me to just buy these I use them anyway. You hit the dollar store. I bought these. They are just paper doilies. It’s just stuff you buy at the dollar store and then these are shrink-wrapped. It’s really cute.
It’s meant to be a gift. It’s kind of sliding around in there. I created a card, of course, the jingle everybody knows “all I want for Christmas is I hippopotamus”. I need to print the cards so that somebody could write on them. Or on the back.
I just printed these out from pictures on the internet and it’s blank on the inside and the back, my tag. I only have five of them. I’ll take these up and sell them for probably as much as what went into these $25 which is not bad for a gift.
It’s a very unique gift for a sister or mother-daughter teacher anything like that. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time!
