100 Custom Pieces for I-Spy Rice Bag

There are many tutorials online showing how to make a rice bag with a clear window so you can hide all sorts of fun items for kids to squish around and find, but none of them use the power of 3d printing to make the hidden objects.

So I designed 100 individual parts that can be printed so there will never be a lack of fun things to find in your own rice bag. All pieces are designed to be printed without supports and are designed to avoid sharp points that could poke through a bag. The bed contact area is often very low (because they are small) so consider a brim unless you trust your print-bed.

You can print the items as small as 50% and still have them be recognizeable, but they will be fragile. If you print them at 200% then many of these could be fantastic character tokens or game pieces. Just imagine the fun of whipping around the corner in Sorry to knock out your friend's firetruck with your toilet paper roll; or castling your beaver and microscope to avoid checkmate from your opponents unicorn.

There are 10 items each for 10 different colors. This would be a great way to use up small filament samples, and if you don't have a color, just print the rest. Here is a list of what you will have if you print all 100, and it is included in the files as a .pdf so you can modify it, remove the group, and have a card that shows the pieces you actually have.

While I did get to know my way around a sewing machine while making this project, I am not qualified to write a whole tutorial on how to make the rice bag. I will direct you to this fantastic tutorial which I didn't follow the pattern, but the process. Here is roughly how I did it:

I started with 10 inch squares. A pair for the front, and a pair for the back. You will also need two 7 inch squares of clear vinyl — I got mine in the sewing department at Walmart, I got the thickest one. It was about $5 for a whole yard (~1 m^2).

The front panel will need a window in it. I did it by cutting an x in both the blue and white fabric, folding them back to create the square window, and sewing the vinyl to the triangular flaps.

There seem to be lots of ways to make the panel with a clear window. I was making it up, so maybe this isn't the best way, but it worked.

The back panel does not need to have a window, but it does need to have a pocket to hold the list of items. Use some scrap fabric to line the edges of a square of vinyl (mine wasn't square and it shows). Attach it to the back two pieces of fabric along only three edges to create a pocket. Sorry I didn't take more pictures of this part.

Lay the front and back panel together with the exterior faces together. Sew around three of the edges, and flip inside out to make the bag with ¾ seams hidden. Fill it with the rice and printed items and seal it up.

Sorry I haven't written up a proper tutorial. Let me again direct you to this one which is great.

Just a note about the rice. It is very powdery which will stick in the layers of the 3d printed pieces and make them look dusty. Shake out the rice in a collander and it won't be nearly so bad.

If you are not up for a sewing project, you can also do the same thing with a pencil bag or just a freezer baggie. Just remember that these are designed to be small parts (some of which are food shaped) which pose a major choking hazard if the contents were to spill.

I designed all 100 of these pieces to be instantly recognizable, durable for their tiny size, and minimally pokey. Have fun using them for a fun toy that can silently keep a kid occupied for hours, or make them into the most random game pieces ever.