Instructions (PDF)
My three year old daughter was in her gymnastics class and her teacher passed out bean bags for their warm-up exercise. Instantly I thought, “Must. Make. Bean. Bags.”
Then the schools closed for the “Stay at Home Quarantine”. On the first day of home school we started our bean bag project. The girls helped me pick rainbow colored print fabrics and before I began sewing them I thought, “Tic. Tac. Toe. Game.”
I began stitching X’s and O’s in the pieces of fabric. As I created the pouches my girls filled them with popcorn kernels. I filled them about half way, so they still had that soft, rattly feeling. After they were all finished and my girls were tossing them around all over the house, I sat pondering on how to make a cool game board/bag.
A regular draw-string bag would have worked just fine, but it would have needed to be big to fit the 9 bean bags. The bean bags are wide, yet when they are sitting in a clump they don’t take up much space. Eventually, I decided on making a flat circle “board”, similar to Chinese checkers, that would gather together to make a pouch.
The bag took shape quickly and I was giddy. It is cute, fun, and useful. I absolutely love being able to sew, because I get to make my children fun little things on a whim with scraps I have on hand. The cherry on top of this cake is that I can create a resource for you! I hope you have some popcorn, dry beans, lentils, plastic beads, or anything to fill a tiny fabric pouch and give it to your kids. It really brings a lot of joy to our precious little ones and I think it will bring you just as much too.
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