Therapy (Rice) Bags

I've been pondering making these for a long time.  They look easy enough but I thought what's the point if they aren't useful.  Since my husband recently had foot surgery I thought he would make a good subject for testing it out. So I searched online for some free tutorials and found so many it was difficult to choose.  There were big ones, small ones, square ones, rectangular ones... I could go on and on. I picked some pre-washed flannel (all flannel in my stash is pre-washed) from my stash and got started.

I decided to make one based on the ice bag my husband received post-surgery.  It seemed logical to make a size that I know already works.  So I purchased some tea tree oil from GNC then headed to Sam's Club for 25 pounds of rice (it was $8, much cheaper than a much smaller bag from the grocery store).  The tutorial that seemed close to the size I wanted to make called for 4 and a half cups of rice.  I wasn't exactly what that meant in pounds and I figured if it didn't work out, we could always eat the rice.

The next problem was how much tea tree oil to add to the rice. I knew it couldn't be much, since it smelled so strong out of the bottle (it smelled so soothing yet a little medicinal). Back to my online tutorial that said to put about a teaspoon into the 4 and a half cups of rice.  That was a bit much so I added another 6 cups to make a large batch.  It seemed perfect.  So I stitched up the bag and filled it with the rice and put it in the freezer.

After a day of being on his feet, my husband was ready to try it out on his sore foot.  He couldn't believe that rice would stay cold long enough but he wrapped the soft bag around his foot and leaned back in his lazy boy. 20 minutes later he was amazed.  His foot felt better and the bag was still cold! So it's a winner. I proceeded to make six more for the craft fair this month.  I hope everyone likes them as much as he does.