rice buddy heat packs

We got home from a quick trip to southern California Monday night to a propane tank that was basically on empty. We rely on that for heat and hot water and we weren’t due for a refill until Thursday. Luckily, we were able to get them to come out sooner (Wednesday morning), but it was still a chilly couple of nights.

By the way, that was part of the reason I didn't post on Wednesday. After dealing with no heat issues all day Tuesday, and almost burning down our house (that's another story), I got back from showering at my parent's house that night after kids had gone to bed (remember, no hot water) and long story short, instead of working on a blog post, got to clean up sick-child vomit not once, but twice. Don't be jealous.

But I digress.

So anyway, I was really glad that I had decided to make some rice buddies for all of the kids last minute (literally, like the Tuesday before Christmas) and they definitely came in handy those nights!

What’s a rice buddy you ask? It’s what we call these great heat packs that you can warm up in the microwave that are filled with, you got it, rice! A few years ago I shared these hand warmers, which are great to warm up and keep in your pockets, but these rice buddies are much larger and the perfect companion for chilly winter nights! Our kids were constantly trying to steal ours, so I figured it was time for them to have their own!

I do have to apologize for the quality of these pictures, the tutorial ones were taken around 11:00 at night so, yucko. Also, the lack of photos. You have to understand that by this point I was starting to feel a lot like Lois in that one Family Guy Christmas episode (minus the swearing), so I was just in a hurry to get the rice buddies done and go to bed. The fact that my husband had been blissfully snoozing for at least an hour was not helping my mood either. These are pretty easy to figure out, so I'm hoping it's easy enough with my written directions and the few pictures I do have.

I picked out fabric for each of my kiddos from Joanns, buying a 1/3 yard for each rice buddy. After washing and ironing the fabric, I trimmed off any loose threads and folded the fabric in half, outsides together (inside out).

Then I stitched up the side, leaving enough space on the end to fill with rice. After turning right side out, I then sewed a straight line up the middle lengthwise. This is extra and just to help the rice buddy lay flat and keep the rice evenly distributed.

Then I filled each side half way up with rice, then closed up the opening with a straight stitch and sewed one on the other side so they would match. And that’s it! They really are simple to make and come together quickly. To heat up you just throw in a microwave for 3-4 minutes and they’ll stay warm for awhile.