ABC BeanBags

This was one of the first blog posts that I wanted to make by lilblueboo. There is a great tutorial on her blog to follow, though I had to make one small change - I have yet to find freezer paper like she describes to use for stencils. Instead I printed out the letters I wanted to use, cut them out, and then traced around them onto the material with a sewing pencil.

The material I chose to use was the stack of CanTeen bandannas that I had accumulated over the years. I only had to use 4 bandannas (I have about 8) and I got 8 beanbags from each one.

The material pieces that made up 1 beanbag each

The first few letters were my trial beanbags so they turned out a little bit different. It wasn't until 'D' that I decided to use 2 colours, and I decided to outline them to make them stand out a bit.

I went to my local Bin Inn and got a large bag of the smallest beans I could find. These turned out to be some little black and some little red ones (don't know their actual names). I found the pinto beans were a bit big, and the smaller ones gave a better texture.

Once I had finished them all I realised I needed somewhere to store them so I've made up this drawstring bag to put them in, using the same letter stencils to do the lettering on the front.

ABC border

We moved house a few weeks before Chloe was born (NOT recommended) and I wanted to add something to the room that I had made. I decided to make an alphabet border to go on the one blank wall.

I started by printing out the alphabet from the computer using a font I liked. These got traced onto 4 different coloured cards, then came the cutting out. I did this during the numerous naps a newborn has.

One of the cut out letters

I liked the idea of putting them on velum, and it was handy that I had a few sheets already. I used a white and a cream/gold colour and cut out squares a bit bigger than the letters.

Letters on alternating velum colours

From there I used a velum spray glue to attach the letters. This was so much easier then using a craft glue and I had them done in no time.

I found some cute, clear pegs which I used to attach the letters to a piece of string I had strung across the wall. I had to put an extra hook in the middle to prevent the whole lot sagging.

I would probably use a darker yellow if I did something like this again, but I am quite happy with how it turned out.

Finished product