Make your own beanbag balls

In my quest for ways to beat the summertime blues, I went to the website for Family Fun Magazine and looked up some crafts to do with the boys. This project was one of the first ones to catch my eye so I bought the supplies I needed and we made some today. You can follow the link to the project, or you can follow this tutorial.

For each beanbag/juggling ball you need the following:

A funnel, three balloons, (they say 11" balloons, but I used 12" and they turned out fine. I imagine that 9" balloons would work as well), and the filling of your choice. Their website called for lentils, but I used brown rice, and I have heard of people using birdseed or just dry beans as well. Rice is what I had, and it worked fine.

Take the first balloon and blow it up about halfway. Hold it closed like that for about 30 seconds and then let the air out. Using the funnel, fill the balloon with your filling. I found it helpful to squeeze the balloon to compact the filling inside so that I could fit more. Once the balloon is filled to your satisfaction (It took between 1/2 to 3/4 cups of rice for ours) make sure there is no filling in the neck of the balloon (squeeze it all down into the main part). Cut just the thick end of the neck off.

Next you will cut the whole neck off of the second and third balloons.

Stretch the second balloon over the first one, folding the neck of the first balloon over so that it will be smooth. Make sure the opening of the second balloon ends up opposite the bottom of the neck of the first balloon. Repeat this step with the third balloon, making sure the opening is once again opposite the opening of the previous balloon.

Here is our finished products. I bought themed balloons for 99 cents at a discount store. I thought it made the balls that much cooler. Its also a good idea to get multi colored balloons, that way if two people like the same color they can just choose a different color for the second balloon and you can still tell them apart.

These make great juggling balls. They are the right size and weight for it. Years ago I had bought a set of juggling balls and they were filled with flax seed. They were great, but I think flax seed is a bit on the spendy side.

We thought these were a fun project, and they are inexpensive to make and easy to replace if something happens to one. I also tried filling one up with cornstarch instead. It made for a lighter weight ball along the lines of a stress ball, but getting the filling in was much messier and more time consuming. I hope you enjoy this project!