Gifties

My little friend Presley turns two today!  This weekend is her birthday party.  I made her this little beanbag toss game.  I recently made our friend Banyan, who also turned two, the same model, in a more boyish denim with appliqued animals on the bags.  (Maybe I'll put up some pics of that one of these days).

          

This is a pretty easy project.  With Presley's I didn't even use stabilizer because I used a nice, heavy canvas for the box part.  I basically just made two box pieces, put one inside the other, wrong sides together, and put a bias tape around the upper edges.  For Presley's I made the bias tape from extra fabric I had on hand.  They now sell fancy bias tape-making-machines that are pretty pricey, but my sis Renata told me about a cool little gadget that makes it super easy to make it yourself.  You just have to cut the strips of fabric (on the bias- or 45 degree angle to the grain) then run it through the little gadget while ironing what comes out.  Voila! Bias tape to match your project! I put wheat seed in the bean bags, because we needed some for the farm and it works just as well as beans.  I just serged up all the sides in black.  I decided, after some quality assurance testing... ok playing... that the box part also needed a little weight, so I added some wheat seeds to the bottom between the layers of fabric.  I like this gift, because it's something that grows with you, you can make it easy or challenging, older children can play with younger and the best part.... it cleans itself up- when you toss all the beanbags in, they're put away! Woo hoo!  Hope she likes it!