Bees bags

In the past I've made beeswax wraps in an effort to use less plastic.  They've worked great wrapping up some foods and covering glass bowls.  Mostly I've used them for sandwich wraps.  And then I had this great idea!  

With all the totes I've been making to replace plastic grocery bags, why not make beeswax sandwich bags?  I know I'm not the first to come up with this idea, but I thought of this while I was wrapping my sandwich with one of my flat wraps.  How much more convenient to just drop your food in a bag.  Thus, I got busy making bees bags!

To make I measured and copied the size of a plastic sandwich bag adding seam allowances.  My finished size sandwich bag is 8" by 9 1/2".  The little smaller snack bag is 5 1/2" by 8".

For the sandwich size I cut an 8 1/2" by 19" piece of cotton fabric.  The snack size bag was cut to 6" by 16".  Then the process is very similar to the flat wraps.  Using a melted mixture of natural beeswax, jojoba oil and natural pine resin, I infused the desired size of fabric.  After the fabric cooled I folded it in half, sewed up the sides and boxed the bottom.  I used pinking shears to trim all raw edges to help keep the fabric from fraying.  With the boxed bottoms they can even stand up and it also helps keep the contents from getting squished.

My past wraps were made in 2019  and they still work.  To clean, I simply rinse or wipe them down, but always careful not to put them into too hot of water that would melt the wax off.

I'm already thinking that I should make larger bags for refrigerator storage such as cheese.

I'm busy as a bee finishing up a couple more projects.  I'll be back soon.