How To Make Immune Boosting Cashmere Heart Hand Warmers

Teddy and his friends play out in the snow for hours each day. When they come inside at last, when the sun is setting and the night is creeping in, they all have rosy cheeks and frozen hands that they need to warm up, pronto.  I have a little trick to help them.

Together, we made sweet heart hand warmers out of an old cashmere sweater that had a little moth damage.

The hearts are filled with wheat berries and essential oil. We pop them in the microwave for a minute or so and they become the perfect little things for warming chilly fingers, fast.

These cashmere heart hand warmers are super easy to make and a wonderful Valentine’s craft for you and your little Valentines to enjoy together.

Materials Needed to Make a Cashmere Heart Hand Warmer :

– A cashmere sweater, ready for recycling (thrift stores are a good place to find them)

– Wheat berries (from grocery stores, craft stores or pet shops)

– Needle & thread

– Pencil & paper

– Sharp scissors

Here’s How To Make Cashmere Heart Hand Warmers :

Tip :: Here is an easy cheat-sheet for you to pin to Pinterest so that you can find this tutorial later when you are looking for it. Trust me… half my time is spent looking for tutorials on Pinterest!

First, we felt the cashmere sweater by popping it into the washing machine. Add detergent and wash it on the HOT cycle. The detergent and HOT water will shrink the cashmere, weaving the fibers tightly together and making the cashmere easy to work, sew and craft with and making sure the yarn doesn’t unravel when cut.

After washing it, put the cashmere sweater into the dryer on the HOTTEST setting you have. This hot drying cycle will felt the cashmere fibers even more.

Draw a heart shape on a piece of paper. Draw your heart about 4 inches in diameter… just the right size to warm a little fingers.

Cut out your paper heart with sharp scissors.

Pin the heart onto the recently felted sweater with a needle. Use this paper heart as a stencil to cut a few heart shapes from the wool.

Each hand warmer will need two cashmere heart shapes that you will sew together.

TIP :: If you feel up to the challenge, I will share a shortcut I devised to speed this stage up a little (I had a long list little boys who requested heart hand warmers!). I drew and cut out half a heart from the paper and then folded the cashmere in half too, pinning the heart to the center fold in the cashmere. I cut around the heart on the doubled up felt, leaving the centerfold intact, so that when I un-pinned it and opened it up, I had a beautiful cashmere heart.

Put two cashmere hearts on top of each other. Sew them together around the outside with a simple embroidery stitch, leaving about half an inch open at the base of the heart that we will use to fill with wheat berries. Please don’t get too worked up about the neatness of your sewing… as long as your stitches are even, your edges will look perfect when your heart hand warmers are done.

Tip :: Do not cut the thread short… leave a good amount of thread loose that you can use for closing the heart’s opening later.

Slowly and with care, turn the heart inside out by pushing the top of the heart through the un-sewed opening you left for the wheat berries.

Look at your edges now. They are neat and tidy and look like they have been perfectly sewn. Ha! Well done!

Fill the heart with wheat berries.

Tip :: For added yumminess, put a few drops of your favorite essential oil onto the wheat berries before putting them into the hearts. This will ensure that yours will be the best smelling cashmere hand warmer hearts in town! In my home, our oil of the moment is On Guard… a protective blend that is an immune booster and has so far kept me and my little ones flu free this whole winter long. Did you know that I’m a doTerra Wellness Advocate? If you want to chat with me about how oils can help your family, please don’t hesitate to contact me. If you want to simply buy an essential oil (like On Guard) or find out more about why I love doTerra oils, I have a whole PAGE full of oil information.

Stuff your cashmere heart well, using your forefinger to gently push the wheat berries into the heart. The plumper you can get your heart, the better it will look and feel to those cold little hands.

With the cashmere heart stuffed with wheat berries, sew the opening closed using the loose thread you left earlier.

Voila! The best smelling, most immune boosting, cashmere heart hand warmers in the world.

Now, when Teddy and the boys come in from playing in the snow, I have these hand warmers warm and ready, waiting for frozen little fingers to warm.

The boys have even taken to warming them up and stuffing them into their pockets to warm their hands on the go.

Your little ones will be glad for this fun and loving Valentines Day craft.

Blessings and magic,

Donni