Making Bean Bags

Let the 1st birthday related posts begin! We are going pretty low key when it comes to presents, seeing as he is only turning 1 and his brothers already own 75% of the toys on this planet. I did want one of his gifts to be homemade. I have been so good about doing that for my niece and for other friends and family but not so much with my own boys. So I decided to make him some bean bags...nice and easy but lots of fun for a 1 year old!

What you need:
~ Fabric
~ Beans. I used small white beans (no really, that's the name on the bag!) and it took about 7 1/2 cups worth.
~ Something to cut with
~ Something to sew with

Let's get started:
You'll want to start by cutting squares out of the fabric(s) of your choice. I wanted 10 bean bags made from 5 different colored pieces of fabric so I cut 4 5inx5in squares out of each piece of fabric for a total of 20 squares. I used a rotary cutter just because it made cutting nice and easy but good ol' fashion scissors work just as well:

I decided to make my bean bags a different color on each side so I matched up my color combinations and begin pinning squares together (the right side of the fabrics should be touching):

Now to begin sewing. You could easily do this project by hand but it is of course much faster if you have a sewing machine. You are going to want to sew along 3 sides of your square, leaving one side open so you can fill them:

Flip your square right side out and fill it with beans. I used 3/4 a cup, you can adjust that based on how full you want your beanbags:

You ready to finish 'er up? Fold down the open side and pin it shut. Then sew across the top and voila...you have yourself a beanbag!

I love this project because it took minimal time and very few materials. I am hoping that Isaiah loves them as much as I do!

Aren't they pretty?

If you are wanting something a little more elaborate, check out these counting bean bags.

This project was featured over at The Happy Housewife, Attempting Aloha, and Play Pennies:

Sophia's tutu

My sweet little niece is turning two soon so I spent some time trying to think of something fabulous to do for her birthday. So far I have made her something for every gift giving event in her life, including her baby showers, and I wanted to keep that going. It didn't take me long to find exactly what I was looking for...a homemade tutu!! Seeing as I have all boys, I crave girl crafts like you wouldn't believe. I feel so blessed that I get to make her these cute things and fulfill my need to create using pink and flowers and ribbons and glitter. Hopefully she doesn't grow tired of it as she gets older. But until the day that she has the words to tell me she wants something regular from the toy store, I'm going to keep on making her stuff!

So here is the finished product:

 I even made my boys try it on to make sure it would be a good fit, although that is a whole other blog post of its own! I wish I would have done step by step pictures so I could walk all of you who are interested through this project. It really was incredibly simple yet I felt so accomplished when I was done. I will share the site I used to get my ideas for this in case anyone is thinking of doing it themselves: Plumtickled  - I followed this one almost exactly except I used three pieces of tulle layered for each knot instead of the one recommended. This gave a much fluffier tutu and I was able to layer colors, like pink green pink for one knot and green pink green for another. I also added flowers at the end using colored brads.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask:)

A picture of Sophia in the tutu and flower hair clips I made her (isn't she a doll?):