d.i.y aromatherapy lavender rice bags

growing up, my mom always had aromatherapy rice bags and bean bags.  i remember popping them in the microwave and giving them a zap to put on sore muscles.  they always felt so good and smelled so good too.

every time ryan and i go to local craft fairs, we see vendors selling homemade aromatherapy rice bags and bean bags.  we always contemplate buying one and then decide against it because they are so darn expensive.  like broken records, we end up walking away saying "we can totally make one of those ourselves."

fast forward several years later, and we keep saying this over and over each time we go to a craft fair.  it has now become a ridiculous running joke with us whenever we see these bags.

this past weekend we had a few hours free before work in the afternoon.  i turned to ryan and said, "oh my gosh, do you know what we should do?  we should finally make one of those bags!"

out to the craft store we went to pick out fabric and pick up dried lavender flowers, followed by a stop at the grocery store for a very large bag of white rice.

we spent our sunday morning doing this project and are so thrilled with way it turned out (and how little it cost).  by no means do i think i'm an expert crafter or sewer.  i have some basic sewing skills at best, but if i can figure this out with no pattern, then anyone can do it.  here's what we did . . .

we picked out two fabrics.  we chose plain white for the inside lining and a cute pattern for the outside of the bag.  since we are so cheap, we bought fabric that was in the clearance bin.  we found two bags of dried lavender flowers at our local craft store and used 50% off coupons on them.  at the grocery store, we bought a 10 pound bag of plain white rice.

we eyeballed the fabric to see how big we wanted the bags to be.  we knew we wanted one that was a long rectangle big enough to fit across our broad shoulders.  we also wanted two smaller squares too.

we put the outside lining facing itself sandwiched between two pieces of white inside lining fabric.  we sewed all four sides, leaving a little hole in order to turn the fabric back right-side out, and cut off the excess fabric.

we turned the fabric right-side out and used a dull butter knife to push the edges out to make right angles.

we used a funnel to pour the rice into the bag through the opening that was left.

after pouring in the rice, we used the funnel to pour in the dried lavender flowers before hand sewing up the small hole.

in total, we made three bags.  the long rectangle is 20 x 8 inches.  it's long enough to drape over our shoulders, to run down the center of our backs, or to fit around our lower backs.  this bag used 5 pounds of rice and 0.4 ounces of dried lavender flowers.

the smaller square bags are 9 x 7 inches each.  they are perfect for a little body part that is sore.  each of the smaller bags used 2.5 pounds of rice and 0.2 ounces of dried lavender flowers.

all together, we made three of these aromatherapy lavender rice bags for a total cost of $12!

once they are all done, all you have to do is pop them in the microwave to heat them up.  the smell of the lavender will make your mind relax and the warm rice will help any aching body part.  (they're also great as little heating pads to keep you warm in the cold weather too!)

love, laurie