DIY: Baby Bean Bags

I love fabric. A lot. I probably have far too much of it, but I figure if ever I grow tired of sewing, there are plenty of other people who would happily take my piles of pretty fabrics off my hands. I told myself a while ago that I wouldn't buy any more fabric until I had made a good dent on what I already had, and I managed to stick to this for a while. But that all changed at Christmas, when I saw a quilt that my friend had made, and she reminded me of the website, M is for Make, which I had forgotten about. Visiting that site was a dangerous move. I got just a little bit giddy with excitement at all of the beautiful fabrics on offer and ended up buying a selection of fabrics to make a new baby quilt with. But that's another story for another time.

Today, I wanted to share with you a little sewing project I embarked upon before Christmas. Within my fabric stash, I have a whole collection of perfectly cut 5" x 5" squares, left over from various Moda Charm Packs. I realised that they could easily be transformed into the perfect tactile toy for young children. So, I made a couple of sets as Christmas presents for some of the children in my life, and have plans to make Ruby a collection of these.

I filled them with polystyrene bean bag filler, which makes a lovely squishy-squeaky sound. To add to the sensory experience, I stitched some ribbon tags onto some of the bean bags, and added some crackly paper (chocolate box packaging!) to others, which makes an even better sound than the polystyrene balls!

 After stitching on the ribbons to one of the 5" x 5" squares, I stitched both squares together (right sides of fabric facing each other), leaving a small opening to turn the bean bag the right way out. If you leave yourself a very small opening, it can be a little fiddly to turn it the right way out, and looks a little something like this in the process:

Once the squares are turned the right way out, I filled them with the polystyrene balls using a measuring jug for ease of pouring. To finish the bags off, I topstitched the opening closed using the sewing machine to make them as secure as possible.