Homemade Heating Pads

My sister Laura, my roommate Lauren and I had the most fun making homemade heating pads this weekend. If you’ve got an aching back or just want a warm pad to put at the end of your bed on a cold night, and you’ve got the slightest hint of a knack for craftiness, then this is a perfect project for you. Laura got the idea off a great blog that she keeps up with, check it out for the exact details of how to make these delightful sachets…they are great to keep for yourself or to give as a gift - flythroughourwindow.com. As the author of this blog notes, THIS IS A BEGINNERS project and very fool proof…I agree! To get the essence of what is involved, check out our photos below:

First you cut out your fabric. This, for us, was challenging only because our cat Aubie wanted to be in the middle.

Laura tried to put Aubie in his place.

With out best efforts to wrangle him, we were at least able to back him off a little so we could cut. He still wanted to supervise though.

With the fabric cut to the designated size, iron it in half, inside out.

Sew two of the sides completely, and the third sew most of the way, leaving room to fill it with rice. Then reverse out the fabric so it is no longer inside out, then again, iron flat.

Measure out 4 inch pockets and mark them with pins. Then sew along each of these pin lines, but don’t sew them all the way, leaving room to fill with rice.

You will likely need a funnel to get the rice in. Measure out the rice and fill one section at a time. We added a bag of chamomile tea to each section to give them a better scent then just rice scent.

Sew up each section once it is full of rice.

In the end, we made 8 of these…they are just that quick and easy! Plus, once we got started, we realized how fun these things are and how great they will be for gifts.

Any of you that are sewers and are used to following good patterns, I know that my descriptions are lacking. I recommend you check out the blog where we found this idea. She gives a much more thorough outline of what to do. Have fun and enjoy this fun winter project!

First time with Etsy

I made my first Etsy.com purchases this week, and I’m now officially a fan of the site.  I wasn’t too adventurous with my purchases, I just bought note cards from two different sellers: JuniperBerry.etsy.com and APunkinCardCompany.etsy.com.

What I was happy about:

• I was able to pay with PayPal on the site – my absolute favorite way to pay for stuff online, it’s just so easy
• Both sets of note cards arrived within 2 days of when I purchased them
• The sellers each wrote personal ‘thank you’ notes
• The beautiful cards themselves

From JuniperBerry, I got these fantastic ‘Bonjour’ cards:

 

Not only were the cards handmade, great quality and adorable, but they were delivered with this personal touch – wrapped in tissue paper, including a thank you card and with a hand written note from the seller on the invoice.

 

From PunkinCardCompany, I got these beauties (so stinkin’ cute!):

 

Plus, this order came with the even cuter thank you note from Amie, the seller:

 

If you can’t tell, I love the personal touch that seems to come from Etsy purchases. But, more than that, I’m super impressed with the quality and the unique, handmade designs.  I’ll be back for more!