Rice Bag Heating Pads

The best quick gift idea I ever learned came from Sue Hausmann. It's the rice bag heating pad. And I've made many of them through the years...

Elliott uses the rice bags to hold his guns steady when he does his gunsmithing. So, their current supply of rice bag heating pads are covered with gun oil -- so we decided to make a new batch.

First, we weighed 1 3/4 pounds of long grain white rice into some baggies. We have enough rice to make 8 rice bags...

I cut up a yellow bathtowel (18" x 12") -- then got fancy and added some handles (made out of t-shirt hems cut off other things)...

A wide mouth funnel is the easiest way to add the rice...

Sorry -- but my pictures of the finished rice bags didn't turn out. In this pic, you can see a couple of them stacked up on the table. (We also filled some old tube socks with rice for Elliott's gun stabilizing).

You can also see Lilly running away in a dinosaur shirt -- I'm SURE I have a better picture of her someplace...

Anyway -- I use one of these rice bags EVERY SINGLE DAY -- I put it behind my neck while I'm working on this laptop computer. When I don't us the rice bag -- I get a neck ache...

AND if you want to heat it up -- stick it in the microwave for 2 minutes. (depending on your microwave)

Obviously, you can make them any shape...square, oblong, etc. And if you are REALLY IN A HURRY -- you can pour the rice into a tube sock. Knot one end and -- VOILA -- you have a very, very quick rice bag heating pad...

**********