A Little Pre - Sewing Summer Series Project

 I've mentioned that I've joined a sewing ministry group at church this past year.  Even if I haven't participated in all the projects, it has encouraged me to pull out my sewing machine more frequently. 

And sewing is definitely a stress releaser for me. Not to mention that I have found several projects on my own that can be useful.

One of the recent things I sewed was for my Sunday school class. A game that was suggested for one lesson involved multiple bean bags and a bucket. 

Hey, I have a bucket. 

And, most likely, our teacher resource room had plenty of bean bags. 

But I had no clue where they were and no time to go and look. Our congregation has a school in the building. Meaning they prioritize building security during the week. And that can sometimes make it more difficult to go any old time and do what you need for your class. Especially when you don't have any old time to do it in.

I thought about just buying some for my own to keep and use. But, in case you didn't know it, bean bag selling is quite the racket! 

A package of 4 was $10 at Walmart. I could have gotten them a little cheaper (by unit price) but I had let my time get away from me and couldn't wait for them to be shipped from somewhere else. I was truly in shock at how much they cost. And I needed about 10 of them. There was NO WAY I was going to spend 30 bucks on bean bags. Are you kidding me?

By contrast, a largish bag of rice at Walmart was around the $3 mark. 3 bucks I can handle. So I rolled out my sewing machine, put on a good movie, and fired up the iron.

I pulled out lots of little scraps I had in a bin and anything that was large enough to work got cut into a rectangle.

After I ironed the rectangles and sewed them up (leaving, of course, a place to turn them), I ironed them flat again. 

And then it was time to fill the little buggers.

Fortunately, my funnel just fit the holes.

After I filled each one, I put a clip on it to hold it shut while I went to work on the next one. 

One tip here: remember that you aren't stuffing a toy. You don't want them filled to the brim. Think of how a bean bag feels and just fill it about half to three-quarterish at most. The filling needs to be able to move around a bit. I had to really resist the urge to stuff them.

Then, it was literally just a matter of sewing them shut.

My goodness. Look at that $27 I saved. LOL 

And, frankly, I think they're a lot cuter than some plain, red, felt ones that are WAY overpriced. The kids agreed with me. How about you?

By the way, I had made my own before but found a cute blog where the mom had made bean bags for a birthday party game. She used all different fabrics they would like. At the end of the party, each kid got to choose one to take home. It was a big hit! If I find the blog again, I'll link it here but I haven't yet.