Bag of Beans

Easter has always been my favorite holiday. In all honesty, I think it's because it involves jelly beans. So as you can imagine, I had a blast making these felt jelly bean bags for my daughter this Easter. My favorite part was the wide array of beautiful colors of wool felt to choose from. It was an instant winner with my daughter who is in her "rainbow phase". She loved mixing all the colors and then putting them in rainbow order. Ah, to be young again. She was equally thrilled to stash them back in the custom bag that had her initials on the drawstrings.

If you want to find the project journal for the Easy Drawstring Bag pictured below, click here.

Materials

• Wool felt ( each 18-inch x 18-inch piece of felt will yield six beans)
• Water soluble fabric marker
• Fabric Scissors
• Straight pins
• 100% Cotton thread that blends with chosen felt colors
• Download Bean bag template here
  

Download and print the bean bag template.  Using the fabric marker, trace the bean template onto the felt colors of your choice. You will need two cut pieces for each bean. You can get six beans from each 18-inch x 18-inch piece of felt.  (Note- the drawstring bag holds approximately 16 beans so you'll need to cut out 32 pieces total to fill the bag) I chose to do each bean in one color, but you can also make each side a different color for a fun twist.

Cut and Sew Bean

Cut out all pieces using scissors.

Pin both sides of the bean together. Sew around the bean with a 1/8-inch seam allowance leaving approximately a 1 1/2-inch opening to turn the beans right-side out and to fill with rice. Backstitch at either side of the opening.

Turn bean bags right-side out. Smooth out the curves by running your finger along the inside of the seam while pressing outward.

Fill Bean

Using an ordinary kitchen funnel, fill the bean bags with rice, beans or lentils.

Fold opening to the inside, 1/4-inch. Hand-sew the opening closed, stitching just inside the folds for an invisible seam.

Please Note: Do not leave your baby or child unsupervised when using bean bags.

Comments

[Knitto04]

Too cute and we all need to stay away from so much sugar! Am going to make these for my granddaughter for Easter - maybe one for her Montessori school mates!

[Miri]

Wow,I love these!
I'll definitely make soem for my little ones!

[kendra]

amazing!!!! love all of the colors and i definitely know a few little birdies that would love these. great project!

[vanessa]

Love the colours!
I'm a regular reader of the Purl blog, and I don't leave enough comments telling you how much I enjoy all your gifts of crafty projects. It never ceases to amaze me how generous you are, and I just want to say a big THANK YOU!

[Toni]

these are so cute and easy enough even I can make them, we will be doing this for sure.

[farrah]

made a bagful for my 2 year old for Easter... love the blog, love your ideas. Thank you very very much!

[Crafterella]

Hey there,

Hannah has added their version of your project on crafty community Cut Out + Keep and we thought you might like to see how it turned out.

You can see their version and also import your project here (that way you'll find out when any new versions are added) :
http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/stubs/jelly-beans

Thanks,
Crafterella :)

[Ash]

Thanks for sharing! This could really be a great sensory toy for my pre-schoolers.

[liz]

Hi,

I realise that this is an old post but had a question that I'd be really happy if you could respond to.

Are there any tips that make hand stitching the opening easier? I tried to turn the open edges to the inside of the bean before sewing but found it very difficult. Also could you tell me what stitch you used?

Thanks for your great blog. :)