The Good Steward Mom: Bean Bag Monsters

Felt Bean Bag Monster in just a few easy steps!

A very inexpensive party favor for a monster themed party.

Everything you will need:
-felt sheets in a variety of colors including a couple black and white (2-3 bean bags per sheet)
-beans, popcorn kernels, beads or other filler
-needle
-thread
-measuring tape
-scissors
-chalk or washable fabric marker
-sewing machine

1. Cut each felt piece into as many 4 in. x 4 in. squares as you can get. I got six squares from each sheet of felt, that's 3 bean bags. I used black and white sheets for eyes and teeth only. (At 4 sheets of felt for a dollar, that's only about 8 cents a bean bag! See...inexpensive party favors!!!)

2. I used the same color felt for both sides, but you can mix it up. Pick two squares for your bean bag.

3. NOW THE FUN PART! Design a monster face and cut out the felt eye(s), mouth, nose, horns, mustache, eyebrows, hair, tongue, etc. Be creative! The wilder, the better! For inspiration I googled "Monster's Inc." in images.

4. Once you have cut the pieces of felt for your face design, apply them to one of your squares. Now...this was a party for 2 year olds, therefore I chose to hand (or machine where I could) sew each item on the felt squares. If these were for a 3 or older crowd, I guess hot gluing would work.

5. Sew around three edges about 1/8 inch from edge.

After sewing three sides.

6. Fill the bag with filler (beans, popcorn, etc).

I had popcorn on this day, however, I did use dry beans in others.

7. Sew final edge while carefully holding filler material out of the way. Tricky, but doable. I found pulling on the front corner helped.

8. Shifting of the felt would occur. I trimmed the edges with scissors to make them even. But, leaving them uneven might add to the monster's character and charm.

AND...That's it! I made about 30 bean bags for my friend's son's 2nd birthday monster themed party. She invited about 15 kids, that means each kid will get to take home two monsters as party favors (16 cents/kid). Each bean bag took approximately 30 minutes to make. I could give or take a few minutes of that estimate depending on the face design difficulty and amount of hand sewing. Plus, toward the end, I got much faster. Here are some of the one's I made. (Some did not get photographed.)