I came home from the store with socks, rice, and ribbon. Here are the questions I heard from my boys when they saw the supplies for this project:

• Are those socks for me? (No, they are for a gift for your basketball coaches.)
• You bought our coaches socks? (Yes, but it’s for a craft project.)
• Why did you buy such a huge bag of white rice? (To put in the socks for your coaches.)
• You’re putting rice in socks for our coaches. Why would you do that?

I have no idea why none of this made sense to my boys. It is so self-explanatory.

I quickly had to explain that we weren’t going to cook the rice before putting it into the socks. Still, I don’t believe the idea made sense until they saw the finished product, and even then, I think they thought it would have made more sense to just make our coaches a plate of cookies. I’ll admit, this is kind of a silly idea. But it’s a useful gift, so hopefully they’ll like it at least a little bit. :)

If you, like my boys, have never heard of this lovely Rice Heating Pad idea, allow me to share one of the easiest gift projects on the planet. There are many ideas for these out there, many of which include fabric, a sewing machine, and a pattern. This one though? It only involves socks. The clean kind. New is preferred.

What You’ll Need

• White Rice (raw, non-instant)
• Essential Oil (optional)
• Socks
• 3/8″ Ribbon
• Scissors
• Tall Drinking Glass

How To Make No-Sew Rice Heating Pads

Fill the glass with dry rice. Add 1-3 drops of essential oil if you like (peppermint is a great choice). Fit the opening of the sock over the top of the glass filled with rice, as shown in the picture above, then turn the cup over to fill the sock with rice. Continue this until the sock is full, leaving 2-3 inches of empty sock at the top. (The rice in the drinking glass idea was the best way I figured out to fill the socks since using three hands was not an option that day.)

Tie a ribbon (grosgrain works best) securely at the top. If you want to be very sure the sock won’t open and spill, feel free to use a needle and thread to close the sock with a few stitches before tying the ribbon. We could just call that version “Barely-Sew” Rice Heating Pads.

Because I used large men’s socks, 5 pounds of rice only filled three heating pads. I have no idea what I will do with the odd sock. Maybe I’ll just add it to my laundry and let my dryer eat it. Or perhaps I should buy more rice and make more cool gifts.

How To Use Your Rice Heating Pad

If you have/use a microwave, you can heat this up for 1 1/2-2 minutes, then put it around your neck to keep warm or use it to relieve pain from sore muscles. Don’t want to use a microwave? Place your heating pad in a baking dish in a 300° oven for 10-15 minutes.

If you prefer ice to heat, store the rice pad in the freezer for cold therapy. Then you can call this your Rice Heating Cold Pad, which makes no sense but is fun to say.

Download a page of Rice Bag Gift Tags

Since I’m making these for our boys’ basketball coaches, I bought socks in our team colors and basketball ribbon. Here’s football, soccer, more soccer, volleyball, softball, and baseball. You could also look for ribbon with your recipient’s favorite sport’s team.

Or, skip the sport idea altogether and pick fun socks and ribbon that fits any person on your list. From Hello Kitty to Duck Dynasty, I’m pretty sure you could tailor make these heating/cooling pads for just about anyone.

I figured this gift costs just a little over $2 each. Not too shabby!

Ever used a Rice Heating/Cooling Pad?

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