DIY Neck Warmer – A Handmade Gift

It’s not too late to think about making some Handmade Gifts!  I made these DIY Neck Warmers in about an hour just this evening.  We all have that one person in our life who is constantly chilly or achy and a Neck Warmer is the perfect gift for that person.  There is nothing as soothing as a hot bag of rice on your shoulders… (Wait, what?) DIY Neck Warmer – A Handmade Gift. 

Alright, before you fly into a panic, yes, I sewed these.  No, I don’t have a sewing machine. Yes, it would be way easier if I had one.  They really are very easy to make, honestly, even if you can’t sew (like me) and even without a sewing machine. I made one out of a recycled sweater and one out of this really fun fabric I found at Michaels. All your giftee has to do is pop the neck warmer in the microwave for 2-3 minutes and they will be toasty warm for hour.  (Not a typo, it probably lasts about an hour.  It’s only rice after all).

Materials

Small Fabric Bundle by Loops & Thread – (Michael’s) OR The Arm of an old sweater

Yarn or Thread

Needle

2.5 lb bag of rice

  1.  If you are using the arm of a sweater, sew up the arm hole with the yarn.  If you are using the fabric, cut the fabric in half and then fold it in half, with the bad side facing out, then sew the three sides leaving an opening at the end so that you can fill it with rice.
  2. Fill either the sweater arm or the fabric bag with rice.  I split a 2.5 lb bag of rice about equally between the two. Don’t overfill the bag/sweater arm.  You want the rice to be able to spread out in the finished product. I strongly suggest getting some help for the rice filling part.  I used a funnel made out of paper and had my daughter hold the fabric bag while I poured the rice.  We only made a tiny mess.
  3. Sew up the open end of either the sweater arm of the fabric bag.  I added a little pom pom embellishment to the sweater one because the gray was pretty blah.  If you’re not sure how to make a pom pom, here are instructions (those are from the early days!).

And that is it!  If you are good on a sewing machine, you could bang out a bunch of these in a night.  The hardest part is filling it up with rice at the end.  And really, that’s not hard.  So, get on it!  Make something someone will love!

OR if you don’t want to make a DIY Neck Warmer, you have plenty of time to make a bunch of these for your last minute gifts from the heart:

I promise you can finish all of those crafts quickly and easily in one night.  And you can usually get all of the supplies from your craft store, except for the felted wool, I still have to buy that from Amazon.

Make someone something!

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