cozy relief

a few months ago i hurt my ankle really bad and one of the only things that made it feel good and loosened it up so i could walk was a warm compress.  warm water in a bag only did the trick for a couple minutes and would leak on the couch, leaving ugly water marks.  so, i filled a sock with rice, put a rubber-band around the top to seal it and put that bad boy in the microwave for about 2 minutes.  ah, warm relief for my achy ankle, but the sock smelled (i promise it was clean).  i looked into an alternative and found this tutorial over at V and CO. 

she uses these rice bags for feet warmers in the winter, but the possibilities are endless.  my mother-in-law wraps something like this around her neck, my sister lays on them, some people use them for heating pads to relieve cramps of the girlie kind, and i use them for my ankle.  it's a super easy tutorial (i love me super easy tutorials) that you could whip together in an afternoon and you don't need to sew like a pro to make it perfectly!

variations for materials to fill with: wheat, rice, feed corn, buckwheat hulls, barley, dry beans, flax seed, cherry pits or oatmeal

and you could easily add essential oils, lavender, herbs or spices to the inside so it smells as good as it feels!