Old Jeans Turned Rice Bag

My hubby goes through jeans like you wouldn't believe.  But he rarely wears them out.  Somehow he usually manages to catch them on something and rip a large unrepairable hole in them.  And then he sews them up with baling twine and gets a few more uses out of them.  (Baling twine is like duct tape, you can fix just about anything with it!)

Since the hole is usually around the pockets or zipper areas, the legs are still in great condition.  After throwing out a few ripped pairs, I thought there must be something I can do with these and began saving some of them.  One day I ran across a tutorial for making rice bags to heat up and I thought to myself wouldn't the leg of one of those jeans be perfect for that?  I finally got around to trying it out and thought I would share it with you!

First you will need to cut off one of the legs as close to the back pocket as you can get.

My first attempt was to just sew the bottom closed and then fill with rice.  Unless you have a super strong needle in your sewing machine though, you will break your needle sewing through the seams. (Just ask me how I know that!)  So instead I cut the seams off to get two pieces like this:

Next you will need to put the pieces together, right sides facing each other, and sew 3 sides closed.  You will have a long tube with one of the short ends open.  Turn it right side out and dump in about 1 cup of rice.  Then you will sew across the tube to keep the rice in about a 4 inch section.

Keep adding a cup of rice and sewing across until you get to the end of your tube.  If you want all the sections the same size, you can measure and mark them before you add the rice, but I just eye-balled it and they all turned out fairly close to the same size.  Then just tuck the end inside and sew across one final time.

On the next cold night, just pop it in the microwave for about 5 minutes and then tuck it into your bed to keep you toes toasty warm!

I made one for each of the kids and they love having them in their beds at night to keep warm!  I also used a few 6 inch square scraps to make a couple hand warmers.

So I made a small dent in my pile of ripped jeans.  Any other good suggetions?

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Living Room Re-do

I think I mentioned a while back that I was trying to get some new curtains for our family room before we had a bridal shower here a couple weeks ago. Well, the curtain project turned into more of a room redo project. Once I got my new curtains up, it just made all the other stuff stand out that needed some fixing, mainly the gap between our ceiling and wall paneling.

So we decided it was time to get the trim put up that we've always been meaning to get up. And of course that meant the ceiling needed to be painted so it would match the trim. One thing always leads to another! But we managed to get it done in time for the shower and I think it turned out pretty good! Sorry for the bad picture though, it is hard to get a good picture with windows in that doesn't reflect the flash or have too much sunlight making it hard to see the curtains.

The curtains are actually just drop cloths that I bought at Home Depot. The guy probably thought I was kinda strange going through all their boxes of drop cloths, but I needed 4 that were all the same color. If you ever try to make these, be aware that all drop cloths are not identical! The drop cloths are nice because they are fairly inexpensive and are already hemmed around the edges! Then I just found a trim that I liked at Wal-Mart and used heat and bond hem tape to iron it on the top on the backside. I folded down the tops and used clips to hang them on the rods. Now we finally have a finished and cozy family room!

Getting to Know My Sewing Machine

I've been spending some time getting to know my sewing machine lately. Last year I received my grandma's old machine and haven't used it much, so I figured I should at least teach myself how to be able to sew a little. I found a few really cute projects to try out and thought I would try to share them here with you as I get them finished. I did not take Home-Ec in high school, so my sewing skills are very minimal. I think if I can manage these easy projects, probably just about anyone can!
I have a ton of scrap fabric around from when I used to make bandannas for my grooming dogs, so I have been trying to use some of that up. First I tried a few of these baby crinkle squares and these reusable snack bags. I forgot to take pictures, but both turned out really well. Recently Beth at Happily Domestic shared this link to some cute doll diapers that she made for her daughter, so I gave them a try for Sweetie to play with on her dolls. The first one that I made was pretty small and only fit a couple of her smaller dolls, so then I increased the size to fit some of her bigger dolls as well.

First I cut out the two pieces.

Then I pinned and sewed them together (wrong sides together) I left a 2 inch hole for turning inside out, which I whipstitched after turning the right way.

Then I sewed on the velcro and they were done! Easy as that!

Sweetie loves them and already has them on her babies!

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Calling All Crafters!

Generally I am not a very crafty person, however, I do like to crochet. I've done a few blankets, hats, mittens, etc, but nothing too hard. Recently I came across a site called Craft Hope that does projects for crafters to donate to. Currently their project is crocheting or knitting scarves for foster teens. I figure that is easy enough and I can help out and donate a scarf or two.
They are also doing a project to help the people of Haiti and Doctors Without Borders. You can donate handmade items to be sold in their Etsy shop or purchase from the shop and all proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders.
I think this is a great way to be able to help out a little and hope to contribute to more of their projects in the future. If any of you are crafters (not just crocheters), check out their site for all the details and see if there are any ways you can help out too!