This past weekend I finally sat down to a project that I’ve been wanting to do forever. I made coasters for my tea mugs. I don’t know where I got the idea … I’d like to think that it was original … but I saw coasters made out of old rice sacks somewhere online, and thought to myself, “Wouldn’t those be perfect if they were filled with good smelling stuff?” Lavender was the obvious choice, because it’s my favorite. A quick jaunt to Greenlife was all it took to stock up on supplies — everything else I had at home.

Before: One basmati rice bag and half an ounce of dried lavender blossoms (about $1.50 worth), mixed with a little rice.

I cut off the top of the rice bag, including the zipper and ironed it flat.

Next, I folded the bag in half and cut out four squares (so that the front and back of the coaster would match.) Then I flipped the squares so that the side of the fabric I wanted to show faced inwards, and stitched three of the four sides together. (The picture below is of the first coaster; I stitched three and a half sides of that one, and it was really difficult to turn inside out. Do yourself a favor and leave plenty of room.)

Next, I trimmed the edges to 1/3″ around the already stitched sides, flipped the pouches inside out, poked at the corners with a chopstick to make them pointy and filled the coasters with a little of the lavender and rice. I stitched the remaining side by hand, folding in the edges and making tiny whip stitches along the seam.

Behold: fun coasters that smell heavenly when a mug of hot tea is sitting on ‘em.