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Valentine Conversation Heart Hand Warmer DIY Tutorial

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Make these simple DIY valentine conversation heart hand warmers for your sweetheart or favorite chicken keeper.

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're 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.  I decided to give them a decidedly Valentine's theme and design them to look like conversation hearts. 

Valentine Conversation Heart Hand Warmer DIY Tutorial

I love these hearts. They're not only functional, they make great gifts. 

I love the size. I made them a bit larger than I first expected since my coat pockets are quite roomy and the larger the hand warmer, the longer it retains heat.

100 % Wool Felt Fabric  Bucket of Berries Color Story  Mulberry Felt Lavender Pink Felt Grey Felt Craft Supply

The Outside of your Valentine Conversation Heart Hand Warmers

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.

If you don't have any felt, feel free to use some cotton flannel or even an old thin sweater (cotton or wool only - synthetics can melt when you heat them).

The Filler for your Valentine Conversation Heart Hand Warmers

As filler for my hand warmers, 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! You want whole raw, dried corn kernels. I chose to use corn in mine partly because our feed store sells feed corn for deer and squirrels which is perfect.

What you need for your Valentine Conversation Heart Hand Warmers

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

Instructions to Make your Valentine Conversation Heart Hand Warmers

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 or rice so it's firm, but not too hard. 

Neatly hand stitch the opening closed and you're done! 










To use your Valentine Conversation Heart Hand Warmers

The hand warmers look so cute in a bowl on the counter and it's convenient to grab two and head down to the barn.

Microwave your hand warmers for 40 seconds each (or 60 seconds for a pair). You can also toss them in the dryer for a few minutes.

They should stay warm for half an hour or longer. That makes for nice toasty hands! As a sweet surprise, slip one into the jacket pocket of your significant other as you both head out the door.


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