With two boys in the house we have A LOT of bumps and bruises. A couple of weeks ago my eldest son took an impressive fall in our hallway and ended up bumping his lip pretty badly. The first thing he asked for (learned from preschool) was an icepack for it, I floundered and gave him a bag of peas wrapped up in a tea towel to do the job and vowed I should probably come up with a slightly better solution, considering just how often we seem to be pulling out that pack of peas lately!

Which is were these super cute ice packs come into play. They’re a great project for scraps or charm squares, they’re filled with rice so they conform to fit which ever body part they’re applied to – whether it’s a knee or a chin and best of all the cover is removable, so they’re easy to wash.

As always, click on any picture to see it full size.

You Will Need:

• Scraps of cotton print
• Cheap thin fabric – this won’t be seen so whatever you have lying around, mine was just some polycotton I had left over from making pillow forms.
• Rice – cute cupcake cup is optional!

Cut List:

From the lining fabric:

• Rice pouch: one 5×9.5inches

From the printed cotton:

• Front: one 5x5inches
• Bottom of envelope: one 5x4inches
• Top of envelope: one 5x3inches

Step one:  Creating the inner pouch

1. Fold your lining fabric in half and stitch along the three open sides, leaving a small hole for turning. Trim your corners and turn the right side out.
2. Half fill the pouch with rice – if you don’t have a funnel just fashion one out of paper and the rice will just slide in. Don’t over stuff it or it won’t be able to shape to the various body parts easily. Half to two thirds full is perfect.
3. Stitch the hole closed. No need to be neat or perfect here as it won’t be on show!

Step 2 – Creating the envelope cover

1. Fold and topstitch the top edge of the bottom piece of your envelope. Do the same to the bottom edge of the top piece. You’re now ready to assemble the cover it’s just a mini version of an envelope cushion cover.
2. Place your front piece with the right side facing up.
3. Put your larger envelope piece (the bottom section) on top, with right sides together.
4. Place your smaller envelope piece (the top section) on top of that, overlapping the bottom of the envelope.
5. Pin and stitch all the way around, clip the corners and turn right side out.

Step 3 – Finishing

1. Topstitch around the square to finish and pop your rice bag inside!

They’re so easy to make, I whipped up three of them in about half an hour. Pop them in the freezer and they’re ready to use as soon as they cool. The cover is removable, so if you get any mud, blood or drool on it then it’s easy enough to pop in the wash. If any blood or grime soaks through to the rice bag just throw it out and make another one. You can even make larger sizes for the bigger bumps.

The biggest difference I’ve found with these are that my kids actually want to use one (as opposed to the fight to get them to hold a packet of peas onto their face!), making easing the pain so much easier, and they’re normally so distracted in which print they’d like (the cute safari animals are number one most of the time!) that they forget that they were even hurt in the first place.