heat pack

With the cooler weather this past weekend, I made a few heat sacks with rice inside. The kids claimed them. Instead of making another with rice, I did a little looking on the net to see what else you could put in them. Then I went to the garden centre to see what I could find. We don't have a bulk barn here.

I have Flax seed, winter rye/wheat, seed oats, yellow split peas, white rice, large oat flakes and some barley malt that DH uses to make his beer.

 I made 3.5 x 4 inch cotton bags and put 1/4 cup of each in the packs.

 I put them all in the microwave for about 1 minute, 30 seconds. The large magic bags, I put in for a t least 2 minutes.

Here's my finding:

Split yellow peas were very hot to touch. Too hot. And smelled like pea soup. Not something I would want wrapped around my neck. :}

Barley malt: did not get any heat at all. DH says that the husk is too fragile to reheat all the time.

Seed oats got a nice heat.

Flax seed: I read that it takes a little longer to heat, but holds the heat longer than rice. So I put it on by itself for an extra 20 seconds. It did have a nice heat. It felt so smooth and soft also. DH liked that one the best.

Winter rye/wheat.. I don't remember.

Large oat flakes: didn't take much heat and would probably turn into flour like substance after much use.

Rice: held heat the longest. I did this whole experiment because I wanted something to hold the heat longer and of all the things I tried it was rice. 

I did like the flax also. 

I think I will try it again with only rice and flax and use a larger amount of flax to see if it holds heat longer.

This is the one I made for Rafael.

 And the orange one is for Neve. I used this awesome tutorial from Wise Craft and put some lavender in the orange one. it smells divine.

So tell me, do you have any experience or advice on heat packs and what to put inside of them?

 I snapped a pic of this symbolic leaf ...

 on the way to getting this picture. Neve has been reading up a storm. She brings her books into bed to read to me first thing in the morning. She is so excited to be reading chapter books. Presently, she is reading all about Poppelton and Mr Putter and Tabby by Cynthia Rylant. I'm happy about it too.

We have to go back to the library to find more from this author.

Off to stir my apple sauce from apples in the garden.

Have a good one,

Amanda