I need your help! Any suggestions for door draft stoppers?

[jbender85]

I need to make 2 draft stoppers for the doors in my apartment. There's a small gap between the floor and the outside door and I don't want it to get chilly because of that or *eek* let anything else into the house!!! Has anyone else made these? I have no idea how to go about it. I see them at stores with cheesy designs of ducks or chickens or something but I want cool ones that will go with my funky apartment. Does anyone have a pattern, idea for cool design or anything else that will help? I'm also not sure what to fill it with because at the stores they seem very heavy like their weighted at the bottom but I'm not sure what they use, I don't want my cats to be able to push it out of the way of the door. Thanks for any help!

[Cherry_Chickentoes]

This is how my mother used to make them, and how I'm going to make some:  Take some plastic sheeting - not too thick, not too thin (really cheap at hardware stores).  Make a tube out of it - as long as you need, and as wide as you need - tape up the sides and one end with duct tape.  Fill the tube with sand, then tape the open end.  Then just make a simple sleeve to go over it out of fabric.  This way, you can pick whatever fabric strikes your fancy, and also change it simply whenever you want to.

The plastic sheeting tube keeps the sand from leaking out through the fabric.  You could also use kitty litter, small pebbles, etc.

I hope that helped.

[shewolf]

I just took an old sheet and sewed it up into a tube, turned filled with whatever I could find and sewed the end closed.

[BeccaJaneStClair]

I'm about to try this out by using a pair of tights.  an e-how article says to double the tights by putting one leg into the other, fill with sand/kitty litter/whatever and then tie the end shut or sew it shut. Anyone make any out of tights before?  I'm turning into an icicle already!

[Alexus1325]

The most ingenious draft stopper I've seen was a fabric tube stuffed with polyfill that had a tab along the entire seam to which velcro had been attached. The other half of the velcro was applied to the door an inch or two above the floor. That way, the draft stopper didn't impede opening the door, and also didn't go anywhere. I think the soft half of the velcro should go on the door so that in warmer weather, when the draft stopper is removed, you won't get weird things stuck to it. Since it's an apartment, you may want to use peel-and-stick velcro (rather than sew-on velcro glued to the door) so that you can remove it from the door with a heat-gun or beefy hair drier before you move out.

[CraftyLittleLady]

How about long strip of rubber to be glued underneath the door to cover the gap?

[MissingWillow]

HippieKender has posted a stay put draft dodger you might find inspiration from -

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=370008.msg4350648#msg4350648