The Easiest Gift To Make, Ever (in the history of ever)

I made these awesome microwavable and freezer bag hot and cold packs for a couple of dozen teachers and they were awesome. Then I had some friends tell me that I sucked for making them feel badly for not making homemade gifts for their teachers so I came up with a simple way to recreate these awesome cold and hot packs without sewing.

I’d made those heating bags based on this free tutorial, only my design was smaller and had less fabric to be sewn (because I made 27 of them). I also made matching  squares for little freezer bags (flipped and turned and sewn, no hiding the seam)

And a no-sew method? Why so awesome?

Few supplies and a little bit of time.

What you’ll need:

  1. Knee-hi socks (please, new), few bucks. Or colorful kids’ knee-highs!
  2. Rice (10-lb bags for $4)
  3. Scissors
  4. Ribbon
  5. Lavender Essential Oil (Was $8 a natural food store.)

What to do:

  • Mix the lavender oil with the dry rice. About 1-2 drops per cup, or how strong you like it.
  • Option 1: Fill the sock bendy and loose and tie the end. See the pic above? I know. The easiest, ever. Maybe Option 2: Cut the end off the sock and tie a ribbon around it tightly. Cut the other end just inside the heel, fill with rice so it’s loose and bendable and tie that end with ribbon.
  • If you want to do one for the freezer, put in lentils with no lavender (the lentils hold the cold a little better).

The rice socks need to be microwaved for about 2-3 minutes. The freezer ones… well, just put ‘em in the freezer. Also, I wrote this for Aiming Low first but yeah, more sharing is more caring.

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3 Comments
  1. Nancy R 44 years ago
  2. Sacha 44 years ago