How to make homemade hand warmers filled with rice are the perfect little heating pads for your hands or elsewhere. Free printable to give them as gifts too!
If you’re looking for a cute gift to make with your kids or something to use yourself as a homemade heating pad or handwarmer, this could be the ticket! This is how to make homemade hand warmers which are small enough to fit in your jacket pocket, but you could make them larger as well to ease back pain too. (affiliate links present)
Homemade Hand Warmers with Rice
Make a bit bigger and use them around the back of your neck or anywhere else you might need a warm “hug”. You only need a few ingredients to make these these rice sock heating pads!
They’re a great Girl Scout Troop project too. We provide this free printable, and the other items I’ve seen at The Dollar Store.
Materials Needed
- Bag of rice
- Felt
- Needle and thread
- Free handwarmer printable (provided below)
- Small cellophane bags if you are gifting them
These are really easy to make and a way to involve the kids too. The perfect size to stick into your jacket pockets once they are warm and keep you warm and snuggly. Here’s how you make them + a free printable to use if you want to give a few as gifts.
How to Make a Homemade Heating Pad
Instructions; Cut two pieces of felt out, any shape, that are the same size
- Sew around outside of your shape leaving about 1/4″ edge, and leaving about 1.5″ opening at one end to pour your rice into
- Turn your shape inside out so the seams are now on the inside
Use a small funnel to pour your uncooked rice into the hand warmer and fold your felt in where the opening was using a pin to keep it closed so it looks good Use a needle and thread to close the opening so rice won’t escape.
Can you use beans to make hand warmers?
You can! Most people will use both actually. A combination of dry rice and beans inside a felt pouch will heat nicely. Larger pieces will maintain the hot a bit longer so using both is a nice combination and cheap too!
How long do rice hand warmers stay warm?
Heating the hand warmers for 20-30 seconds in the microwave (or longer for larger sizes) ensures that they retains sufficient heat for about 20 to 30 minutes. This will depend on the size of course, larger versions will be hot for longer.
Rice Hand Warmers
- Print labels below and slide into plastic bag so you can read it thru the bag or print on sticker paper so you can cut them out and stick the label on the front of your bag
- Enjoy
You can print this free handwarmer label printable sheet here to cut out. Attach or print on sticker paper and to the front to give it as a cute gift! If you don’t want to use sticker paper you can print it on paper. Then cut them into squares, and slip it in with the printing on the outside. That way you can see it thru the clear bag.
These cellophane bags look the best but if you are really trying to save money you could use ziploc sandwich baggies too. If you’re a teacher in the cooler climates it would be a cute holiday gift your students could make for their parents.
Just ask a volunteer to sew the majority of the outside of the hearts and allow students to sew the rest, or if they are older students they could easily hand sew the whole thing.
Super cute right? This is how to make homemade hand warmers when the temperatures really dip during the winter time! What other simple diy gifts have you done with your kids and/or students during the holidays? You can also make homemade lotion bars or this is how to make a knot pillow, and get to gifting.
Cute handwarmers, I’m excited to make them.