Another DIY post for you today in the form of keeping your hands toasty warm by making your own handmade hand warmers.

Today’s post is a really easy sewing project that you can make for yourself or for others. You don’t necessarily require a sewing machine, however, it will make it a lot easier if you do. There is only a tiny bit of hand sewing in this tutorial, which is just to close up an open seam and to finish the project off.

What are handmade hand warmers?

Hand warmers are basically little bags filled with rice, that you heat in the microwave to warm your hands up.

Now, I am calling these hand warmers because they are a good size to hold in your hand, however, they can be used on other parts of your body. These handmade hand warmers are perfect for warming up those cold hands in these colder months, as well as easing aches and pains you may have.
They also have a calming effect as well, due to the lovely smelling essential oils of lavender and sandalwood added to the rice. These essential oils are also known to soothe inflammation, so perfect if you are using these heat pads to ease those aches and pains.

Contradictory to the title of this project, these hand warmers can also be placed in the freezer to offer some cold therapy to injuries or soothing a headache. These are super versatile and might be more preferable to the frozen bag of peas you could use!

You can adapt the size of these to suit your needs to, for example, a bigger version for placing your feet on.

Keep reading below for the tutorial, there is also a video version at the end of this post as well!

How to make Handmade Hand Warmers:

Like I have said, these are really easy to make, and you only require a few items to do so. Some items are optional, so make these as you like. The most important thing to remember when making these is the type of material you use. You really want to use cotton fabric. Using a fabric with any form of metallic is likely to have disastrous effects when warming in the microwave, and any with plastic coating could melt. You really don’t want to have a fire on your hands, or a destroyed microwave! If you want a decorative pouch, with heat transfer wording on it, for example, it may be best to make an outer envelope style cover. I haven’t done this with mine, so I am unfortunately unable to show you how to make this during this tutorial.

There are also several fillings you can use from flaxseed, dried beans, dried corn to name a few. In this project, I have opted to use rice. Uncooked rice acts as a great heat conductor, and heats really well in these handmade hand warmers.

Items needed:

• Cotton Fabric – fat quarters are the perfect size for this
• Matching thread
• Uncooked rice (1kg bag)
• Sewing machine
• Hand sewing needle
• Bowl
• Spoon
• Funnel
• Lavender essential oil [OPTIONAL]
• Sandalwood essential oil [OPTIONAL]

Step 1 – Cutting out the material:

Place your fabric down, and fold it over itself, so that you will get two pieces when you cut. To get the most out of your fat quarter, only fold the material to where you need it to be. Measure out a rectangle of 20cm x 26 cm. Cut this out and cut along the folded edge to give you the two pieces of rectangle fabric.

Step 2 – Fold material and sew together:

Choosing one of your rectangle pieces of material, fold this in on itself long sides together. This should give you a rectangle size of approx 10 cm x 13 cm and will be the overall size of the handmade hand warmer when finished.
Pin this together, leaving a gap of a few centimetres on one of the shorter edges. This will be the gap where you add in the rice.

Head to the sewing machine, and sew along the open edges, making sure you miss the gap you have marked out. Backstitch when you get to the opening gap, this will make this opening a bit stronger whilst you are filling the pouch. There is no need to sew along the folded edge.

As an optional extra, you can zig-zag stitch along the newly sewn seams of the hand warmer, to offer a bit more stability to your newly made pouch. This will hopefully aid in reducing the seams from fraying. You can also use pinking shears to combat fraying too.

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Once sewn together, turn the hand warmer right side out.

Repeat this process with the other rectangle piece of material so that you have two pouches ready.

Step 3 – Add in the rice:

Then it is time to add in your rice. At this point, I emptied half of my bag of uncooked rice into a bowl so that I could add in the essential oils. If you don’t want to add in essential oils, then you could add the rice straight from the bag.

In a bowl pour in your rice and add 3-5 drops each of the lavender and sandalwood essential oils. Mix these in thoroughly to evenly distribute the oils into the rice.

Then grab a funnel. I made my own funnel with a scrap piece of paper, as I didn’t have a funnel to hand. Either will work for this, and it is just to help to add in the rice. Place the funnel in the opening left in the newly sewn pouch and begin spooning in the rice. You want to add rice until the bag is roughly 3/4 full.
Keep testing out if you have enough, by holding the opening closed and spreading the rice out. The rice should fill all of the bag when it is laid down fairly evenly.

Step 4 – Close the opening

Once you have added enough rice into the pouch, it is time to close up that opening. Using a needle and thread, double knot the thread and stitch a ladder stitch. This is basically a stitch going from side to side of the opening; so when pulled slightly, the fabric comes together and the opening closes. See how to sew this over on Molly Sews’ post if this is confusing.

Once the hand warmer is all stitched up, it is ready to be placed in the microwave to heat. I recommend heating this for approximately 60 seconds /1 minute. You may find that this makes the hand warmer too hot, or not hot enough. If it is not hot enough for you, then place it in again for a further 30 seconds.
The handmade hand warmers should stay warm for around half an hour but may lose the ability to retain heat the more frequently you use it. I also placed mine on a heatproof plate or in a freezer bag, so that the essential oils don’t taint the smell of the microwave.

So there you have how to make your very own handmade hand warmers. Easy right?
These make perfect gifts as well as keeping all to yourself. Perfect for these colder months that are upon us!

Have you made hand warmers before? Would you do it differently? Let me know in the comments below!

Handmade Hand Warmers Video:

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If you are looking for another winter DIY, why not have a go at protecting your lips with this DIY Lip Rescue Kit!

See you in the next post!