Making Crinkly Toys

June 7, 2004 8:28 PM

My infant daughter has cloth toys that make a "crinkle" sound and I want to know what the material is inside it that causes the crinkle..does anyone know what it's called? Where can I find it? Is it separate (two different pieces of material-one inside the other) from the outside material (which is soft cotton) or all one piece? I want to make her some toys that crinkle...
posted by aacheson to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (9 answers total)

Hmmm...it could be Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC). There was a big scare concerning the material not long ago, as an secondary compound, di-isononyl phthalate (DINP) was found to be hazardous.

You might want to check a number of home safety and consumer-related websites to see if the toys are listed.
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:59 PM on June 7, 2004

It's plastic; I'm not sure what the composition is (all the company says is that it's a unique polymer,) but having torn one open to find out what it is (I've also destroyed gel wrist guards...) it's just a thin sheet of silverish plastic.
posted by headspace at 9:04 PM on June 7, 2004

it's layers of a thin polyethylene, i think--you can get sheets/rolls of it at Industrial Plastic here on Canal St.--maybe a place near you has it? or you can order from them.
posted by amberglow at 9:30 PM on June 7, 2004

We have some of those toys, too. A really helpful tip the pediatrician gave us is that crinkling a simple plastic shopping bag above your baby and moving it around to get him to follow it with his eyes will soothe a crying baby or allow you to put in eye drops or swab out his nose. It works. Some scrunched up shopping bags might work for you.
posted by planetkyoto at 9:49 PM on June 7, 2004

The shopping bags will degrade and fairly quickly, and the "crinkle" goes away. I've used mylar (from old mylar balloons) and even that plastic cellophane you can get at gift wrap stores to get the same effect when making toys for my "baby" ... who happens to be a cat (they dig it too). I wouldn't know about any adverse health effects from these two things on human babies, but my cat hasn't shown any adverse effect, and he usually rips his toys apart and gnaws on them.
posted by Orb at 11:08 PM on June 7, 2004

I'd be really, really sure of your sewing ability before giving plastic bags to a baby to play with. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that such bags aren't a toy and present a risk of suffocation. It's probably actually written on the bags.
posted by Jeff Howard at 6:13 AM on June 8, 2004

I've made crinkle cat toys for my cats using old chip bags, the shiny kind. Cut them open flat and wash them well and sew them in between the layers of fabric you're using.

Free!
posted by jennyb at 6:16 AM on June 8, 2004

You realize, of course, that as soon as you hand your daughter this toy, she will instantly lose interest in all things crinkly, and spend the next month happily gnawing on a tupperware lid, right?
posted by vraxoin at 8:17 AM on June 8, 2004

LOL.
Of course she will, vraxoin!
posted by aacheson at 9:33 AM on June 8, 2004