this is Maria and today I'm going to show you how to make this really super simple heating pack and so this is rice filled and you heat these up in the microwave by just putting them in there for a minute and you can use these on sore muscles like on your neck on your low back anywhere you like you can use these even for menstrual cramps my nice one of my niece's says it really works and she was really reluctant to try it and so she swears by it now and so but anyways you guys you can also use these like if it's really cold at night you could just heat it up and just put it next to you in bed and it'll keep you warm and toasty till you fall asleep and they're so much fun to make super simple and they make great gifts and everyone will love them I promise you guys and so like I said you heat these up in the microwave and there's rice inside you can also put these in the freezer and use these as a cooling pack so the first thing you're going to need to make these rice packs is a sewing machine it's simple straight stitch sewing you guys so don't worry nothing fancy here and then you're going to need some scissors some thread I like to choose a lot of fabrics that I know I can use white thread with because you can make a lot of these without changing the thread in and out and you're going to need a few straight pins you're going to need a pattern and you can cut this from just a piece of paper this is just some cardstock that I have and this is computer paper this is my original pattern here and I have 10 by 6 inches but what I found out what I was doing with this was I was allowing like a seam allowance which was half an inch around so I just cut out a new pattern for this video so now I have it at ten and a half by six and a half inches but you guys can make any size that you want because you can also make smaller ones to tuck inside your pocket and you're going to need some flannel fabric you can use cotton fabric but I like to use the soft flannels because they're just cozier so before I cut the fabric I like to iron my fabric to get all those wrinkles out but that's optional you don't have to do that and if you're going to iron your fabric you might want to use a spray bottle just to spritz your fabric with water so I want to have a spritz bottle right now you guys mine was old it just stopped working and so I just have this little bowl of water this is how my mother used to iron years ago anyways and I'm just going to sprinkle this this is what my mom used to do my mom used to iron a lot and so my mom iron everything even pillowcases my dad handkerchiefs yeah because we came from that era when guys are still using handkerchiefs and so yeah mom ironed everything and so I was also in the habit of iron everything until I got married with Joey 40 years ago we're going to celebrate our 40th anniversary next week on the 26 and one day he said will you please stop ironing my clothes you're going to wear them out that was so odd because I was so used to ironing in everything I'm going to place this on the fold because you could see how I did this I just folded this up from the end and I'm going to place this side on the fold and then I'm going to put this to the edge and I'm going to put my first pin my straight pin to hold it in place then I'm going to do the other end and you could put the pins wherever you feel comfortable putting them and I like that right on the edge and be careful because you will you know kind of pick your fingers sometimes poke your fingers with these pins and you don't want to get any little drops of blood on the fabric yes sometimes you get little drops of blood from the pins because they're pointy and sharp so if you're a child you should really have some help with this from an adult okay so I have that and then I'm just going to go around the edges and be careful with the scissors and your fingers okay I'm going to move my iron over because I don't want to burn my arm there and then I'm gonna go here and just follow the line the edge it doesn't have to be perfect you guys you can see it's not perfect at all the edge so don't worry about that you can snip that off if you want but it really it doesn't have to be perfect and then I'm going to take these two ends off here because I have the fold here and I mean you could take all of the pins off and that's what I usually do but I'm just gonna do this for today then I'm gonna take my scissors this just makes it faster you guys so you don't have to cut all the way up and I'm going to put my scissors right in the fold and just cut along that fold very slowly here and again it doesn't have to be super perfect but you do want to get it along there as much as possible which I did not and that's okay guys you know it's funny because when you're doing a tutorial you know for YouTube like I'm doing right now I'm standing behind the camera like I'm back here and the camera is right here so it is a little awkward you guys and stuff okay so this is what we end up with we have our first one and so then I just snip this off toss that aside I'll pick that up later and then if I want to make another one I just fold this up again and then I would lay my pattern down and cut this again but I'm not going to do that right now also I want to show you you're going to end up with this long strip if you have half a yard like I do here and so what you can do with this let me show you another piece of fabric I have so here's another piece of fabric I have and this is the end that I just showed you at the end of the half yard and so if you have a whole yard you will go almost to the very end and you'll get let's see three across and so but anyways isn't that cute guys I love these little kitties and so yeah and so what you can do then is you can fold it inwards like this and then you can cut another one and if you have enough room you can cut another one which I'm not sure if you would and so but if you don't you can always cut out smaller ones for your pockets I'm at my sewing machine I'm going to turn on the light I have a pair of scissors here I like to have two pairs of scissors one next to my sewing machine and the other one I keep on my ironing board when I'm working on these and so here is the fabric the rectangle the rice pack before it's sewn and so you can see I have the print facing each other on the inside and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to start right here at this corner and you can do about a I think this is about a quarter inch but right here to the end of the sewing foot and so it's just a simple straight stitch you guys and so I'm going to start out slowly like this and then I'm going to back it up to lock this stitch I always like to lock my stitch and then we're just going to sew all the way around keeping this right next to this sewing foot super simple right okay as I get closer to the end here I'm going to stop I'm gonna go one time using the little hand thing on the side and then I'm going to turn it facing me and when I do that that's what I like to snip these threads and so I don't have to worry about that anymore they're snipped and then I'm going to go down to this edge here on the bottom I love these bags you guys I can't tell you how much I love these they have been a lifesaver to me and so especially as a writer when I was writing my novel oh my gosh you guys you know when you're at the computer for hours literally you get sore shoulders and your low back will hurt and so I would just heat this up in the microwave and it was very helpful okay so then I spun it around again and let's go up this way we're almost there and so I'm going to lock the stitch we're going to leave this end open so we backwards now just a lock stitch and then I'm going to pull this out and snip these threads right here and then always pull those threads right in the back so it's ready to go again and so here we are you guys and so you can if you want snip at a little corner here let me show you be very careful if you do this you don't want to get too close to that and that's just so when you flip this over that you'll have a smoother corner but you know what I don't really care about that you guys I really don't and so I prefer to leave it this way and so let's go ahead and I'm going to put my hand inside just like a puppet okay hello you guys and so then I'm going to put my thumb's in here and I'm going to pull it out and turn it inside out okay and I'm going to push the little corners out with my fingers and then we're going to use our scissors in a minute or you could use a pencil or whatever you like and let me show you what I'm going to do so you want to do this very carefully too because you do not want to poke a hole in the fabric so I'm putting my scissors in here and so I mean you get used to the feel of your scissors and you know how far you can push this and so that's what I'm doing right here just sort of pushing it out a little bit so that corner will pop out a little and then here we'll do this one okay and so there we go you guys okay so the next thing we're going to do is I'm going to go back over to my ironing board and I'm going to tuck these in you guys I'm going to tuck this top in just like this just about half an inch and so it's going to look like that but I want to iron that down it would just be much easier so we're back over here at the ironing board and I'm just going to do this again I'm going to push this under just like this just like that okay so we don't have the rough edges we're going to fold that in fine just sprinkle a little water on that you guys and then I'm just going to press super simple right you guys okay it's not perfect and so it doesn't have to be perfect but you do want them to come together as close as possible I mean even when you're sewing you're not gonna get them perfect all the time you guys but it doesn't matter as long as you stitch it really good you know closed okay there you go you guys so let's go ahead and go back to the sewing machine and let's go ahead and sew on the edge all the way around this just reinforces it okay because we want that rice to stay in the bag so I have this pressed and what I'm going to do is I'm going to start here on this corner again I'm going to lock my stitch go forward and back and go all the way around and you guys this is like a rerun a Maria rerun because guess what I didn't turn the camera on when I sewed up the last one so I'm doing this over again and so let's go ahead go forward back forward again all the way down and we want to make sure this is flush right here with the sewing foot and then I'm going to slow down here and go about right there and I'm going to turn this and you can see it's flush with the sewing foot again and I'm going to trim these threads right here and I'm going to continue and again I'm going to slow down I think I'm gonna stop right there you just sort of get a feel for it and you can see its flushed here again with the sewing starting to veer off to the side a little bit you guys it's okay don't worry about it just sort of guide it back and I'm going to slow down here going to pull that just a little bit just so it's a little bit more flesh these edges okay and I'm going to turn it okay and so what I'm going to do at this point because you can see the top is open I'm going to sew about halfway down and then I'm going to lock the stitch here and then we're going to leave this open because this is where we're going to put the rice in through this little opening okay so let's continue I'm slowing down just a little bit if you notice and then here I'm going to lock the stitch go back forward okay and then pull the wheel up turn the wheel and I'm going to snip these and there it is you guys super simple right and again like I said if you want to make smaller ones like for your pockets you could just make them like half this size if you want okay so it's time to fill this up with rice so the next thing you're going to need is a funnel and so you can use one of those kitchen funnels but I don't really care for that you guys because the little opening you can't get that much rice in that quickly with this funnel you can fill these bags up very fast and so this is just made using some paper some cardstock and some Scotch tapes so I'm just going to take this piece of craft paper some card stock and it's super simple just take the edge here you guys just the edge and you're just going to roll it up and then you're going to use some scotch tape just to keep it out close to you guys and so that's it that's it kind of roll it up like a tortilla and then you're gonna take some scotch tape and you're just going to put that there just to hold it and I'm gonna put some at the end and I'll probably put another piece of scotch tape right here in the middle so now you have a funnel to fill up your rice bag so let's fill them up so the rice I use is just the store brand rice that I find at our local grocery store it's long grain rice and so I buy it in the 20 pound bag you guys if you're going to make a lot of them and so here we go got lots of rice got our bag and we have our funnel and so I'm going to put the funnel right here inside that opening and then I'm going to take just this plastic measuring cup and so you just go ahead and pour this it just makes it a little easier and faster at the top you guys move this down and then you just put it in like that I like to use this big bowl that I have I found this big metal bowl at the swap meet and so it's a bowl that my mother used to have one just like it okay and then you just let it fall in and you can see it's already starting to get weighted down and so I like to fill them up it's up to you and so I like to fill them up to about right there okay about maybe not quite three-quarters maybe about half let's see and so because if you have it too much you don't want to put it too much you guys because you know if you're already hurting your muscles are hurting you don't need anything heavy on you and so just keep it light and so that's not quite half okay some reason that is starting to feel about right and so it looks like it's about halfway full and so here we go this is the test this is what I do I turn it sideways and then I go okay that feels about right if it doesn't feel right it feels too heavy you could just open the opening and take a little bit out with your fingers and then go ahead and let it settle again and if you do that make sure anyways that year there's no rice up on top because you don't want to break your sewing needle okay and so let me go ahead I feel a little grain of rice up in there yeah and so I don't feel any rice in there right now so let me go ahead and fill the next one up and then we'll go ahead and close these up this is the easy part you guys we're going to just sew this shut we're gonna start sewing up here at the corner and we're going to go all the way across okay and try to hold this so it's even as possible so I'm going to start at the corner then I'll hold my threads down and I'm going right over here at the corner not all the way to the corner I'm trying to go like where the stitching is there but if you do it's alright and so I'm just gonna move the wheel here okay and then I'm going to go back walk that stitch go forward all right and I'm going to try and follow the stitching that I already have on there but you know what sometimes it's not possible it'll be a little bit off and so no worries and I don't know why I like to double stitch there I guess to reinforce just a few extra stitches and just going all the way across and going to snip those threads okay I'm gonna snip those a little bit okay and that's it you guys that's it and if you want you can sew again across I've done that before and cuz sometimes if you go too close to the edge and you know you're not really confident just sew another one I'd rather have the rice not fall out you guys so you know sometimes I just do that so another one but I should say that most of them I don't do that it's only if you feel like it's going to close to the edge on top and so just to reinforce it like I said it just makes me feel more confident because anytime I give someone something as a gift my sewing I want it bit I want it to be the best it can be you know I don't want them to say oh it broke open and all the rice came out and so but anyways that's it you guys that's it so I just need to sew up the second one here which will be a breeze that's it and then also while I'm sewing I'm just naturally feeling for any grains of rice even though I've already checked because you never know right there could be one loose went in there and I don't want to break a sewing machine needle so here's the sample of the different flannel fabrics that I used for the heating packs you guys and they just came out so cute I just love these and I know everyone is going to love getting them for Christmas and I hope I could sell a few of them also you guys so thanks for watching everyone and I'll go ahead and put the instructions below on how to use these heating packs ok thanks for watching I hope you have fun making these and happy selling bye bye everyone