Valentine Conversation Heart Hand Warmer DIY Tutorial

When you live on a farm and raise animals, as so many of you know, there's no sleeping in, no hibernating in the house all winter. You are outside year round - when it's 100 degrees and humid, as well as when it's 16 degrees and windy. In the winter my hands are always cold, and mittens or gloves don't work well for doing barn chores, so that leaves my fingers exposed....and they get cold.  It's so nice to be able to plunge my hands into my coat pockets to warm up with these cute valentine conversation heart hand warmers.

Mine were inspired by a cute project shared on my blog last fall by Practically Functional that I pinned HERE, knowing that I would be making some for myself this winter. I changed them up a bit and decided to give mine a decidedly Valentine's theme and design them to look like conversation hearts instead.  I also made them a bit larger since my coat pockets are quite roony and the larger the warmer, the longer it retains heat.

I chose to use felt for my hand warmers.  One warning about felt: most craft store felt is made from polyester that can melt in your microwave when you heat it, so don't use polyester craft felt.  I was fortunate to have some old felt my Mom gave me that is made of wool, so that's what I decided to use. If you look, you can find 100% wool felt, such as this sold by Felt on the Fly. That is what you should use for this project.

As filler I chose to use whole kernel corn. The larger the filler, the longer it will retain heat and stay warm: 10-15 minutes for smaller filler like rice, up to half an hour or more for the larger fillers.  Just don't use popcorn - you don't want your hand warmers exploding!  I chose to use corn in mine.  Our feed store sells feed corn for deer and squirrels which is perfect.

What you need:

• Felt in pastel colors to mimic conversation hearts (pink, purple, green, yellow, white, etc)
• Coordinating thread
• Red embroidery floss/needle
• Corn (or other filler)

Cut two 5" squares of each color out of your felt. Then trim off the two bottom corners and continue cutting to form a heart shape.

Hand stitch your saying on one piece of each color ( I just free handed it, it doesn't have to be perfect) and then with right sides facing, stitch along the edge, leaving a 1" opening.

Carefully trim around each heart as close to the stitching as you can.

Turn your heart right side out and then neatly machine top stitch along the seam stopping at your opening.

Fill your heart with the corn so it's firm but not too hard.  Neatly hand stitch the opening closed and you're done!  The hand warmers look so cute in a bowl on the counter and it's convenient to grab two, pop them in the microwave to heat them, and head down to the barn.

To use: Microwave your hand warmers for 40 seconds each (or 60 seconds for a pair). They should stay warm for half an hour or longer. That makes for nice toasty hands!  Slip one into the jacket pocket of your significant other as you head out the door for a sweet surprise.

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