{"id":25786,"date":"2015-09-16T05:34:05","date_gmt":"2015-09-16T10:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=25786"},"modified":"2015-09-14T09:34:26","modified_gmt":"2015-09-14T14:34:26","slug":"quick-gift-idea-scented-hot-pads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=25786","title":{"rendered":"Quick Gift Idea: Scented Hot Pads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/hotpad-150x135.jpg\" alt=\"Hot Pad\" width=\"150\" height=\"135\" class=\"contentimg\" \/>Here&#8217;s a fast, easy gift idea that has the added advantage of letting you use up leftover scraps of fabric: Hot pads and mug mats which give off a spicy autumnal scent when something hot is placed on top.<\/p>\n<p>The fabric you use should be closely woven so bits of spice don&#8217;t fall out, and made of some material that won&#8217;t melt or discolor when exposed to heat (100% cotton is best).<\/p>\n<p>For the spice mixture:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1 C small cinnamon chips (if you can&#8217;t obtain these, put cinnamon sticks in a bag and whack them with a rolling pin or other heavy object to break them up)<\/li>\n<li>1 C anise seed<\/li>\n<li>1 C whole cloves<\/li>\n<li>1 C nutmeg pieces (these can be broken up the same way as the cinnamon, but nutmegs are pretty hard so you may need to use a hammer)<\/li>\n<li>1 C allspice berries<\/li>\n<li>1 C rosemary needles<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For each mug mat you will need two squares of 5&#8243;x5&#8243; fabric.  Place right sides together and stitch sides with a 1\/4&#8243; seam, leaving an open space in the middle of one side for turning.  Turn right-side out and press.  Fill with spice mixture to about 1\/2&#8243; thick.  Turn in the raw edges and top-stitch the opening.  Package four mats together, tied with pretty ribbon, and tuck a cinnamon stick under the ribbon.<\/p>\n<p>(For a fancier version of the mug mats, try The Road to Crazy&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/theroadtocrazy.blogspot.com\/2014\/10\/31-days-of-halloween-2014-day-13.html\">reverse applique tutorial<\/a>, which produced the cute little Frankenstein cupcake in the photo above.)<\/p>\n<p>For a hot pad, you will need two squares of 8&#8243;x8&#8243; fabric.  Place right sides together and stitch three sides with a 1\/2&#8243; seam, then stitch the corners of the fourth side but leave the rest of the edge open.  Turn right-side out and press.  Turn in the raw edges on the fourth side 1\/2&#8243; and press.  Stitch three parallel lines down the square, creating four tunnels of equal width.  Fill the tunnels with the spice mixture to at least 1&#8243; thick.  Top-stitch the opening.<\/p>\n<p>You can vary the spice mixture as desired, omitting some and adding others.  Bits of dried citrus peel are nice, as are lavender flowers or strong-scented herbs.  It&#8217;s easy to make up a large batch of the mixture and sew lots of hot pads as stocking stuffers or last-minute hostess gifts.  If you plan to make the pads well in advance, store them in a plastic bag to keep their scent strong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a fast, easy gift idea that has the added advantage of letting you use up leftover scraps of fabric: Hot pads and mug mats which give off a spicy autumnal scent when something hot is placed on top. The fabric you use should be closely woven so bits of spice don&#8217;t fall out, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doom-it-yourself"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25786"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25795,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25786\/revisions\/25795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}