How To Bring a Bean Bag Back to Life

I bought this HUGE bag of "Bean Bag Filler" awhile ago for yet another ill-advised  DIY project. I left the bag in the garage until I was ready to tackle "reviving" the two "poufs" DH and I use to rest our feet on when watching TV in our bedroom. I paid $100.00 for the two poufs a couple of years ago and wasn't ready to give up on them yet. "I can do this," I told myself, as I handed the clerk at JoAnn's Fabrics my 40% off coupon for the "BIGGIE" bag of pellets.

Every time I walked through the garage to my car, I had to pass this monstrous-looking bag of styrofoam pellets. It seemed to grow larger and more ominous by the day, in my mind at least. The directions on the back warned of the potential for "static electricity" and suggested one might want to use these little pellets "with a friend".  That scared me enough to put off the project for a few weeks more. But, as I procrastinated, my poufs were shrinking and slowly becoming unusable.

Once I finally dared to open the bag, I realized that the role of the friend would be to keep me calm as the pellets literally flew around my craft room, sticking to rugs, curtains, lampshades, fabric, yarn, and my pile of half finished holiday projects.. In moments, these little styro-UFO's took on a life of their own!

That's when DH walked in and found me not only covered in styrofoam pellets, but in tears.  Actually, a few "bad words" might have been slipping from my mouth as well.  Quite a few actually.  But DH saved the day, and the project. 

Here's what he came up with. DH taped the vacuum cleaner tube from his shop vac to the bag of pellets . I held the other end into the slit I had made in the side of the bean bag, and VOILA . . . gravity did the rest. It worked perfectly. We filled both poufs in minutes with no more styrofoam UFO's!

Here are  the finished poufs. Good as new! Actually, even better.

Hopefully you'll never need to fill a bean bag. But, if you do, remember this little tutorial. It'll save you time, a BIG mess, a few tears,

And lots of wine!