My homemade Christmas gifts

The original idea was to save money and make Christmas gifts instead of buying them. I don't know if any money was actually saved after all my trips to fabric stores, craft stores, and Wal-Mart. But it was fun and I think a homemade gift is always appreciated.

I made three different things: rice heat therapy bags, eye pillows for headaches, and lavender sachets. Most of my ideas came from this page on Sew Mama Sew, which is a great site if you sew or try to like me! Although some of the stuff was too difficult for me, so I simplified a lot! (They tell you to cut fabric into 2 x 7.75" strips!? So I just cut them into 2 x 8" strips and it seemed fine to me!)

Here's my little set up with my ironing board on the floor and laptop readily available. I was making my first rice heat therapy bag cover.

And here is the bag that goes inside with rice.

I put these on the floor to take a picture and Toby thought they were pretty cool. They close with Velcro. (Yeah, I sewed Velcro!!)
Then I started cutting about 100 fabric squares for the sachets. Okay maybe not 100 but it felt like it.

Here are the finished sachets. I was pronouncing them "sash-ets" until I told my little sister Karlie and she sweetly said, "um, do you mean sash-ays?" Oops. I wanted to put real lavender in them and I went to florists and everywhere I could think of but no luck. So I ended up putting batting inside and then a couple drops of essential lavender oil.

As an afterthought I whipped up these little headache pillows. You are supposed to put them in the freezer. (Don't you like how I say "whipped up" like it was no big deal?!)
I don't have a picture of this but to finish off the gifts I put a little tag tied with ribbon to each of them. It gives directions on how to use them (heat the rice therapy bag in the microwave for 2-3 minutes) and says "Homemade with Love!"

I will definitely be making gifts again. Next time I probably won't wait until 2 days before to get started!