Cold Feet
Have I mentioned that I am just a little bit tired of winter?
But one thing that I did not go into in my past grumbling is that my hands and feet are always icicles during the winter months. No matter how many slippers and thick socks I wear my feet are frigid. Until now, the only thing that worked was every evening filling up the bathtub part way with hot water and dunking them. Just a little time consuming. Or sticking them on my husbands bare leg while we are laying in bed. More fun ? Yes, but I bet you can guess how happy he is when I do that.
Then I heard one of my parent’s friends mention that they have like a beanbag filled with rice that they heat up and it keeps their toes cozy all night. My mom was very intrigued (cold feet are genetic I guess) and I thought it was brilliant. I had all these visions in my head about how I would construct it and then make an awesome tutorial to share here. And then everyone else would be so excited that I put this new idea together in a cute fabric sort of way.
Then I googled it.
Definitely not the first person to think about this or put together a tutorial. Rats. Guess I have been living under a rock.
But I am happy to report that if you can sew a straight line you can put one together super quick. Really. No major skills required. I put mine together in less than 10 minutes start to finish.
Basically all you need is a cute fabric scrap, lining fabric, some rice, some Velcro and possibly some scented oil if you want it to smell nice. I used stuff that I had laying around except for the orange scent I found in the soap making aisle at a craft store.
Since there are so many great tutorials out there I am not going to add another one, but this one at Sew, Mama, Sew! Blog was what I used for inspiration.
In a nutshell, sew together your lining fabric on three sides, fill it with scented rice (I used about ten drops of oil) and then sew it closed.
Then make a slightly larger pillowcase for your rice with velcro on the end.
Smush it closed and now you have a pretty little foot warmer.
I have found warming mine in the microwave for about 2 minutes does the trick. I also read that some people suggest to also put a cup of water in the microwave while you are warming it to make sure your rice does not scorch. Not sure if this is true or not but I thought it was better to play it safe because while I have never smelled burned rice, I do not imagine it to be very pleasant.
Also a hint that I learned…there is a reason that it has a removable cover. When you set it in the microwave, make sure you take off the pretty fabric so it doesn’t get all gross sitting in there. Or maybe that it just me and it is a sign that our microwave needs to be cleaned. Lesson Learned.
This might be the best winter invention yet. It is keeping my toes toasty warm as I speak type. And it has been going strong for over an hour. And as a bonus, the fabric matches some of the pillows in the family room so it does not look out of place. It can just be a mini pillow. So if you are like me and never heard of such of thing you really need to try it out.
I know Derek’s legs are appreciating it at least.
