My Adventure with Creating a Safe Reusable Sandwich/Snack Bag

I just recently got my sewing machine all set up in my bedroom. This is actually quite a process so once it’s set up I like to do as much as possible with it before I put it away. To follow up on my reusable lunch bags I decided to create a reusable sandwich/snack bag. Now all I needed was some waterproof fabric. I found people using all sorts of things for their reusable wraps/bags; PUL, Oil Cloth, Nylon … The most popular of these being PUL. It’s a polyurethane coated fabric that is often used in making diaper covers. For some reason I just wasn’t sure that
Reusable beeswax cloth sandwich bag
Image by HarmonicMama via Flickr

was what I wanted to use, that’s when I came across this wonderful blog post, on 4 Girl Designs, about PUL and other materials used for reusable wraps/bags. In this post she mentions beeswax cloth. BINGO! That’s right up my alley. I have tons of beeswax sitting at home from an old ornament project so I googled beeswax cloth and came across this simple method for making it. Not only is beeswax cloth water resistant but it helps to prevent the growth of mold, yeast and bacteria. The only downside to this method that I see is that it’s not machine washable but it should be able to be wiped off easily to clean.


Once I read how to make beeswax cloth I got to work grating the beeswax and ironing it in. One quick tip. I found that I had to use more beeswax then I initially thought to coat the fabric, this also made it quite stiff so once I had the fabric completely coated I laid down some paper towels below the fabric, between the fabric and foil, and ironed it again to get some of the excess wax out. This kept the fabric water resistant but made it more pliable.

Now that I knew what I was going to make it out of I needed to decide on a pattern. I looked around and found quite a few designs an originally was going to go with this pattern on Craftstylish.com. While I really like this pattern I decided that I wanted to a simpler approach and made up my own design that hearkened back to the old fold over style plastic lunch bags and this is what I came up with.

Reusable beeswax cloth sandwich bag
Image by HarmonicMama via Flickr

Reusable beeswax cloth sandwich bag
Image by HarmonicMama via Flickr
It was pretty easy to make. I’ll post measurements and a pattern another day. For me the trickiest part was figuring out how big the fold over flap should be. At first I made it way too big and with the
stiffness of the beeswax cloth it was a little hard to flip over so I had to pull the whole thing apart and start over. One other thing that was a bit difficult was getting such a large piece of fabric, about 10 x 20, coated with beeswax. Next time I might break the pattern down into smaller pieces which would be easier to manage.

So now I have an eco friendly, food safe, reusable sandwich/snack bag!


Jennifer

Jennifer is a busy working mother of two who, along with her husband, has chosen to unschool her children. She currently blogs about her experience with the challenges and fun of unschooling along with her love of crafting and cooking at HarmonicMama.com.

8 thoughts on “My Adventure with Creating a Safe Reusable Sandwich/Snack Bag

  • March 3 at 3:21 am
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    thanks! i saw the same post on 4 girls designs, and am glad to see that you've tried the beeswax method- i'm going to do it too. your bags look nice. are they working well for you?

    Reply
  • August 16 at 3:51 pm
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    This is wonderful and informative! Thanks so much for writing about this šŸ™‚

    I saw the post on 4 girl designs too. All of the warnings about chemicals are so scary!

    Reply
  • August 16 at 4:50 pm
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    In regards to how these have held up it's hard to say because my little one lost the bag shortly after I made it and I haven't had the time to make another one yet. I had a great deal of fun making them The only thing I would change is that I would make it a little bigger this time around and with thinner fabric. My fabric was pretty thick so the final product was a little stiff.

    Reply
  • February 11 at 11:17 pm
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    Visiting from Kelli @ 3 boys & a dog. Glad to find your blog. I’m a crafty parent gathering info about homeschooling so I’ll be hanging around.

    Reply
  • February 14 at 8:38 pm
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    Visiting from Kellie’s blog. I’ve seen these types of bags, but never knew how to make them. Very nice photos and great instructions.

    Reply
  • Pingback: 9 Amazing Etsy Finds For The Ikea Fabric Fanatic | Harmonic Mama

  • April 23 at 6:38 pm
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    fabulous idea! where can find your patterns?

    Reply

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