Look around the backpacks at my house—and there are several—and you’d see that every zipper is adorned with a little something. It took my family a while to amass a collection of backpack clips, but now we have enough that we basically have to rotate our favorites periodically.
Finding out that Ty, the viral maker of Beanie Babies, has introduced Beanie Clips for backpacks is not going to help our issue. I mean, who wouldn’t want a little Turbo Turtle dangling from their bag, with his big ol’ eyes staring up at you on a long commute home?
The good news is I won’t have to bust my budget collecting my family’s favorites. Unlike some other, “monstrous” viral bag charms whose name I won’t mention, these are mostly an under-$15 affair. Prices vary from seller to seller, but the MSRP is only $7.
Beanie Clips come in lots of styles, from the glittery-eyed Beanie Boos to licensed characters from places like Disney, Marvel, Bluey, or Minecraft. Their sizes vary, too—the Minecraft Enderman is really long!—but for the most part, I would say they’re around 3 inches tall, which is enough to make an impression on a backpack, but not so big that they’ll get in the way. They also have the heart-shaped Ty tags that made Beanie Babies so collectible back in the day.
One thing worth noting: Not every Beanie Clip has that satisfying, bean-bag feel. You can almost see it in the photo above: Stitch has that floppy, Beanie Baby vibe, but Bingo is just stuffed all the way through and looks a lot fluffier.
For those who don’t want to be precious about the cardboard, heart-shaped tag, the sewn-in tags also feature the Beanie’s name. (This was very helpful when I was trying to identify Leroy, a character who I was unfamiliar with, but now I will not part with.)
And while he’s not a Beanie Boo, Leroy does have a little glitter in his eyes, and so do many of the other Beanie Clips I saw.
They’re the perfect mix of retro-trend (at least according to me, someone who’s old enough to remember the original Beanie Baby craze) and current-trend (since backpack charms are still in, so says my 10-year-old). I can see giving these as cute, back-to-school gifts for kids to go along with their new school supplies—or to give an old backpack a brand-new look.
Some of Our Favorite Beanie Clips
Which one is your favorite? Let me know in the comments!
