.Aside from my absolutely beautiful Aurora sky fleece lined gloves that my friend made me for Christmas, there is something else that is keeping me warm whilst I pastel the hours away!

As some of you know, I use a magnetic board to work on.  It’s so useful to use magnets to secure my work to the board – give it a try.

But the downside of that is that the magnetic surface is really cold!  It’s been down to -5C here at night and up to only 2C in the day time.   I stand up at my easel and my arms moving + the radiator at my feet is great so I’m doing okay but that board was making my hands freeze to the point that my fingers were going numb!

I LOVE coming up with DIY solutions to solve problems.  I knew exactly what I needed and i was thinking how to make it, but I wondered if something already existed that would do the job as well or better.

I needed to heat that board up, somehow, without setting fire to it!  I tiny current of electricity would do it, but how and safely?

My ever resourceful and knowledgeable other half, Rhod had the solution.

A reptile heat mat.

It’s such a simple and cheap way of staying warm!  The one I purchased (from amazon or et shops is about 8×12 inches and It’s only W so uses minimal electricity.

After a few tests I came up with the solution below.

It’s a drawing board with a layer of lambs wool insulation (fleece would do too) and then the heat mat taped on top.  It’s very crudely put together but works a treat!  Without the insulation I found that it wasn’t as warm)

Here’s some photos so you can see how it’s constructed.

Here’s the front view.  My drawing board sit’s in front of this and and warms up really quickly.  The heat mat has a temperature control dial.

Here you can see the 3 layers. Board, lambs wool fleece and heat mat sandwiched together. then my drawing board sits on top.