While caulking around windows and doors is a vital way to conserve household energy and save on heating bills, talking about it is, well, as exciting as watching caulk compound dry.

Luckily, there’s an easy way to rediscover what our parents and grandparents did to save money, while reducing our carbon footprint at the same time: draft snakes.

Draft snakes, also called draft dodgers and door snakes, are tube-shaped objects of various lengths made with fabric and filled with some kind of insulating stuffing. You’ll most often find them placed against the bottom of closed doors or on window ledges to block pesky winter drafts from entering a room.

To be even more environmentally correct, you can make your own draft snakes from leftover scraps of material, old neckties, worn denim, dried beans, sand or other materials you can recycle from around the house. Get the kids involved and decorate with googly eyes, felt tongues and so on, so they can learn about saving energy, too.

Mother Nature Network

DIRECTIONS

1. Gather pieces of fabric you have leftover from projects or an old bed sheet. Cut it in half lengthwise so the width of the fabric is roughly 5 to 6 inches. The most common length of a draft stopper is 3 feet, or 36 inches.
2. Now, fold the fabric in half lengthwise.
3. Using a sewing machine, sew together two of the three openings. There should be one at the top and then the long lengthwise one. Make sure to leave one small end open so you can fill your stopper. It helps to reinforce your stitches a second time to ensure a long life for your stopper.
4. Fill the stopper with rice, beans or sand. You want to use something that’s heavy enough to keep the draft out.
5. Once the stopper is full, carefully tuck in the edges of the fabric and sew the end closed with a few hand-sewn strokes. Then, use your sewing machine to make the stitch sturdier. Now you have your very own draft stopper. Because you pick the fabric, there’s endless possibilities of colors, textures and designs you can use to customize your stopper.