Custom Stress Toys & Stress Balls

Stress relievers as stylish as true retail toys.

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Stress Toys – The Basics

3. How much do stress toys cost?

Other common names for stress balls:

Custom Stress Balls 101: From Design through Production

Want to know how we design & make stress balls from scratch?  Then this section is for you! We’ve made it chockfull of info and hope it’s a handy resource to help you enter the wonderfully squishy world of stress relievers.

Part 1) Turning a Character into a Custom Stress Toy

On this page you’ll find more information about the design decisions that we make together with our clients to manufacture the best darn custom stress balls we can.

With their unique shapes and designs, each order of custom stress toys we produce are tailor made to best suit our client’s designs and needs – as well as those of their brands and fans.

Happy Worker’s a unique stress ball maker. We combine our creative design, detailed perfectionism and deep-rooted passion for great toys and gifts - with a laser beam focus on our clients’ goals.

Stress Ball Creation That’s Truly Hassle Free

We collaborate easily with our clients’ creative & marketing teams. For some of our clients we handle all aspects of the creative, product and packaging design. Other clients have their marketing and design teams take the lead on product and package development, while Happy Worker’s crew provide strong support and ensure great quality toy execution and on-time delivery.

Design & Development Process

At the beginning of each project we’ll draft a toy design plan, which includes a detailed project schedule with all the nitty-gritty steps and review stages. Together we’ll cheerily carry out the plan – and then, of course, we’ll happily deliver high quality custom stress relievers.

Introduction to Happy Worker’s Custom Stress Ball Creation Process

At a high level Happy Worker’s custom stress toy manufacturing process includes 5 basic steps, starting from the initial concept and finishing with happy stress balls delivery:

1. Ideas & Concepts
2. Design Decisions
3. Prototyping
4. Manufacturing
5. Logistics & Delivery
6. Extra Step - Happiness Now & Forever

Stress Ball Ideas and Concepts

First, the right concept is chosen and developed. Sometimes our clients come to Happy Worker with clear ideas or concept drawings.  Other times our clients haven’t yet built out the concept, shape, or messaging, but know they want custom stress toys or custom stress balls. Either way our teams will collaborate to co-conceive, develop and design the stress toy. This is handled step-by-step, starting from rough concepts through to finished designs.

Turning Mascots, People, Buildings and Products into Custom Stress Balls

Custom stress toys can be designed from an existing brand character or mascot. Or they can be created from the ground up to bring an entirely new idea or message to fun toy life. Popular ideas that are created as customized stress balls:

• Product replicas
• Mascots
• People (stress toy figures or stress dolls)
• Animals
• Buildings
• Logos and 3D graphics
• & almost any unique design or idea

Many shapes and sizes of custom squeeze balls can be created – from mini stress relievers, toys with plastic bendy arms and legs, to stress relievers with sound chips. There are few limits. As a design-focused custom stress ball manufacturer, Happy Worker enjoys pushing new boundaries in stress toy design.

Stress Toy Design Decisions

Once the concept or idea behind the stress toy is determined it’s time to decide which type of stress toy or stress ball will best fit the project. A number of creative decisions are made including the best size, shaping, branding, and packaging. Happy Worker will recommend features that best suit the stress ball’s or stress toy’s purpose, audience and pricing goals.

Once all the decisions are made and the project is approved, our designer will create final stress toy “control artwork”, or blueprint designs that will be used for the stress toy’s prototyping.

Sizing up Custom Stress Toys

Most stress balls or toys are made to be hand-held, i.e. sized to fit in a fist and be squeezed:

• Most popular sizes are 3.5 to 5 inches (8 to 13cm) long or in diameter.
• Other sizes - small mini stress toys or jumbo sized foam toys - are possible.

Happy Worker will recommend the best stress ball or custom squishy toy size to suit the item’s purpose, target audience, design goals, and budgets.

New Unique Shapes for Custom Stress Balls

We specialize in manufacturing new, never before seen stress ball shapes designed just for your project, brand and campaign. Often stress relievers are made to be handheld, and can be shaped much like a ball or egg shape to fit nicely into a person’s fist. However custom stress balls can be made in many unique and unusual shapes, including larger objects like vehicles, animals, products, people, or buildings.

Some shapes are better suited to foam stress relievers than others, either for production or final stress toy durability. Happy Worker will recommend changes to the design so that the final foam toys are high quality and resist tearing or breaking.

Logos & Branding

Logos, graphics and slogans can be applied almost anywhere on the custom squishy toys and their packaging. Depending on the surface texture of those positions, branding and logos can be applied almost anywhere on the stress ball through various methods. These include:

• Sculpting
• Painting
• Imprinting
• High Quality Permanent Decals

Fun Toy Features & Functionality for Custom Stress Toys

For custom stress ball orders of 5,000 or more, we can create custom stress relievers that have bendy plastic arms & legs, and other playful components like “wind-up” walking ability, sound chips that play music, and magnets.

Materials for Custom Stress Relievers

We create high end collectible stress balls made of premium materials. Traditional stress relievers are made of polyurethane “PU” foam and are decorated with high quality, durable paints, imprints, and decals. In some toys materials like silicone and rubber can also be considered.

Retail Toy & Gift Packaging

Most retail packaging styles are possible for custom stress relievers, including:

• Polybags – most popular & most economical
• Card ‘blind’ gift boxes
• Window boxes
• Blister cards or Clamshells
• Tin boxes

The most popular packaging for custom stress balls are transparent polybags. These see-through or frosted thick plastic bags are printed with branding and product information and sealed with the stress reliever inside. The breathable polybags provide protection during shipping, storage, and distribution.

Part 2) Custom Stress Toy Prototyping

In this section you’ll find an introduction to how Happy Worker prototypes and manufactures custom stress balls and stress relievers.

Many of our clients don’t want to know all the nitty-gritty details of custom stress ball production. And really, there’s no need - we handle all aspects of manufacturing. We fuss over all the little details so our clients can focus on their own business. We’ll guide your team through the process and involve you and your team only when necessary.

However, if you’re the curious type and like to know how we create custom stress balls, then this page is for you!

Prototyping Stages

Working from the concept artwork and creative decisions, the stress ball’s first rough prototype is sculpted from wax or clay. We’ll share digital photos of the sculpture in progress.

From your feedback, we’ll make any adjustments to the shaping of the prototype.

Then we’ll create a plastic resin copy of the sculpture, which we’ll courier to you so you can see the prototype in person. Note - because this prototype is made of a hard resin it won’t be squeezable just yet. If any changes are needed we’ll make them prior to moving onto the next step.

With approval, we’ll create a single set of stress reliever molds and produce a few test stress toys in the final PU foam material. We’ll paint these prototypes according to the concept artwork. Logos, graphics, and slogans are also added to the painted prototype to produce a final “pre-production” prototype - or one that looks and feels just like the final custom stress reliever. Again, we’ll courier these sample toys to you so you get to examine and play with them in person.

On approval, we will get started manufacturing your custom stress balls!

Part 3) Custom Stress Ball Manufacturing - Production Process

After the stress ball pre-production prototype is completed and approved, it’s foam toy-making time! Custom stress ball manufacturing includes the following steps:

1. Mold Making (Tooling)

   Additional sets of production molds are created as required, to properly produce the desired order size and meet the production schedule.

2. Materials Ordering

   The next part of stress ball production is fairly rudimentary - raw materials and paints are ordered or created. In many cases we make new paint colors and decals so that the final stress toys match Pantone PMS colors and brand guidelines exactly.

3. Toy Molding & Production

   The production molds are used to cast the number of stress relievers needed to fill the order. This is also called “foaming”.  After the newly birthed stress toys are removed from their molds there is some extra foam material left where the two halves of the mold meet. This is carefully trimmed. Then the foam stress relievers are inspected for quality, and any small spots are filled to ensure that no bubbles or holes mark the surface of the stress balls.

4. Painting

   While Happy Worker manufactures stress balls in quantity, each stress ball is painted by hand with the use of air brushes and paint masks.

5. Printing & Decals

   Any graphics, slogans, or logos are now applied to the surface by printing or decal application.

6. Quality Control

   Before being packed the stress balls are checked for quality assurance against our toy quality control checklist. Additional stress ball safety testing is also performed.

7. Packaging

   Great toys require great packaging. The finished custom stress balls are carefully and happily placed and sealed in their packaging. Then the packaged toys are placed in shipping cartons and prepared for delivery.

8. Delivery of Custom Stress Toys & Stress Balls

   Whether it’s for an event, trade show or retail launch, we’re experienced at delivering custom stress balls around the world, from large shipments to small, by sea, truck, or courier. We can also kit stress balls together with other items and manage complex distribution requirements.
   Together we’ll discuss your distribution needs, and then work with our shipping and logistics partners to deliver your order happily on time and in great condition.
   For super important rush shipments – if we agree to produce a rush order (e.g. stress balls less than 18 weeks), then please see our Time critical rush shipping – the fine print for additional information to be aware of.

9. Quality, Testing and Product Safety

   We’re an unusual custom stress ball manufacturer – we really care about quality. All the toys Happy Worker makes as well as their raw materials are subjected to quality and safety testing.
   Additional safety testing is required for stress toys intended or marketed for children and teens less than 15 years old. Happy Worker works with certified toy testing labs that perform U.S. CPSC, CPSIA, ASTM and other tests as required by each country and region to meet and exceed federal and international safety standards.

10. Important Extra Step: Happiness Now & Forever

    We’re just as excited about your custom stress balls as you are. And we want to make sure your new stress relievers aren’t just delivered to the quality we both expect, but that they achieve the goals of your program and business.
    We follow-up both during launch and a few weeks or months after launch to get your feedback and that of stress toy recipients – to make sure we know that together we’re achieving the design and program goals. Any potential improvements to products and processes are captured so we make sure that every new custom stress toy is our best ever.