French Lavender Winter Comfort Pillows

 

It’s cold here!  The sun has been shining and there has been no rain or snow, but it’s COLD!  Especially at night.  So for the last few nights I have been heating up one of these awesome bags in the microwave and taking it to bed with me.  It warms up the sheets, my feet, and me as I drift off to sleep.    I first spotted these wonderful “Warming Bags” over at Spoonful of Sugar and have been plotting out how to make them over the past few weeks.    Here is a photo of her bags that so captured my attention.

I first fell in love with the Eiffel Tower Fabric they used and the tags they added for gift giving are very cute.  They made their bags using wheat.   They put together an excellent tutorial if you want to make some of your own.     Click here on “Spoonful of Sugar” to see how they did it. 

For my bags  I decided to use white rice mixed with a little bit of French lavender instead of the wheat simply because I couldn’t find the kind of wheat they used and I already had the white rice and lavender on hand.   I wanted to make some these for gifts this year and of course wanted to try and find the Eiffel Tower fabric or get as close to it as I could so the first task was to locate some fabric.  I like to shop local when I can but Eiffel Tower fabric is in short supple around here so I found some online at Fabric.com and ordered a couple of yards.  It arrived on Wednesday and by Friday night I had five bags made.  

I changed the measurements only slightly for my bags and cut the fabric into 10” X 6” pieces.    With the printed sides facing each other I pinned the pieces together and sewed them together leaved about a 2 inch opening  so that I had a space to fill the bags.   Carefully turn the bags right side out and give them a quick pass with the iron.  I mixed the rice and lavender together in a large bowl careful not to add too much lavender.  You don’t want the scent to be too overpowering.  I used a funnel to fill the bags so that they were full but still loose enough to be able to “mush” it around if you know what I mean.  After filling the bags, I hand stitched them closed with tight little stiches to ensure the bags stayed nice and tightly closed. 

I am still working on making the gift giving tags with the instructions on how to heat them up.

    

To enjoy your warming bags I would suggest that you heat it up for about 1 and 1/2 minutes in the microwave along with a small dish of water to ensure that your bag doesn’t dry out.  Also, heat in small intervals of time if you want it warmer after the initial first minute or so.    You do not want to burn or scorch the rice in your bags because if you do it will affect the way that they smell.  

I gave one to my daughter Kelsey and last night both she and I cuddled up with our Comfort Pillows and watched The Family Stone movie last night before trotting off to bed with our re-heated bags. I love that movie. It’s on my list of favorite movies to watch during the holidays.    We watched Love Actually the night before (another favorite holiday movie that made my list!).

I can’t say enough good things about these delightful little pillows of comfort!  They really are a quick and easy project and I think they just make people happy.  Can’t ask for much more than that!