Christmas On A Budget - Part 2

WHOOPS! While doing my Pink Saturday post, I found this post from last month that was never published. It was sitting there as a Draft. Ugh.

So here it is...almost a month late:


The biggest, most overwhelming part of our handcrafted Christmas are the Rice Bags.


I started out with 19 on my List for all the ladies in the family.


But my List has quickly expanded and now we're up to 29.


I'm making each of these with 4 separate compartments in each bag. That helps keep the rice from sliding to one spot in the bag.


Each compartment has 1 cup of rice in it.


I started out using herbal teas to add fragrance to the rice.


Apple cinnamon, lemon, chamomile, orange teas.


But I soon found the teas did not provide enough fragrance, as the bags just smelled like cooked rice when they came out of the microwave. Not good.


So then I switched to fragrance oils which worked much better. "Warm Sugar Cookies" -- ooooh so yummy smelling!





Afterthought: Now that the Holiday is over and all the rice bags have been given away, I cannot tell you how popular these gifts were. I continue to receive Thank You's over and over again for them. People tell me how soothing the bags are on their aches and pains. And with it being winter, several people tell me they heat their bags up and sleep with them or lay them over their feet in bed.

These ended up being very good gifts to give-- for their practicality and for being budget-friendly.