Little Green Books - Little Green Blog

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Heating your home creates greenhouse gas emissions, whether your family uses electricity, home-heating oil, or a woodstove. In fact, heating and air–conditioning devours more than half of the energy that an American home uses. Making door snakes is a fun way to defend our home from drafts that leak from under doors and around window sills.

Here’s what you can do:

Make a door snake that will fend off drafts, keeping rooms warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

Here’s what you’ll need:

One yard of fabric (scraps work great)

Small piece of felt or ribbon for the tongue and eyes

Masking tape

Sand or fine gravel

Scissors

Pins

Measuring tape

Fabric glue

Funnel

And here’s how you do it:

1. Measure the width of the door.
2. Cut out a fabric rectangle that is about 1.5” longer than the width of the door and 7” wide.
3. Turn the fabric upside down and fold in half lengthwise.
4. Glue the long end and one short end, leaving a 1 inch border. Make sure to leave one of the short ends open!  If needed, hold the seams in place with tape or pins until the glue has dried.
5. Use masking tape to seal the seam shut so that the sand won’t leak out.
6. Turn the material inside out so that the other side of the fabric is showing. Using a funnel, fill the snake with the sand.
7. Glue the last end shut.
8. Cut out the tongue and eyes and sew or glue them onto your snake. You can also use googly eyes or buttons if you have them. Add any other embellishments you can think of—like spots, stripes or even a rattlesnake tail!