I’m so passionate about these things that I decided I need to have a way to show everyone how to make them. The internet seems to be full of ideas and different recipes and methods on how to do this – but here’s what I’ve been doing for a year now and loving it. I’ve made tweaks along the way to find techniques that make it easier, more efficient, and more effective.
I use the same technique to make 2 different styles of wraps: storage wraps (for snack bags), and tacky wraps (for wrapping around cheese and other things).
The photos are from numerous different days making different wraps, just so you know why there are different fabrics and jars appearing and disappearing. 🙂
Materials
- Fabric
- Beeswax
- Oil (I used jojoba, but any vegetable-based oil will work)
- Mason jar with lid, which you will store the leftovers in
- Pot for on the stove
- Parchment paper
- Iron
The tacky food wraps also require:
- Pine resin (I bought mine here. With a phone call they were happy to ship to me in Canada.)
The snack pouches also require:
- Elastic
- A sewing machine, or at least a needle and thread to do a couple of quick stitches up the sides.
Step 1: Get some fabric.
I used scraps of whatever I had in my basement, which was basic cotton fabrics. You could probably use just about anything, but I’m guessing that stretchy fabrics (such as T-shirt material) will behave oddly. Just something to keep in mind.
Step 2: Cut it to size.
If you have pinking shears (to make a zigzag edge), these are ideal to minimize fraying. If not, you can use regular scissors too, but you might want to pull a few threads out from each edge so they don’t come loose to annoy you later.
Food wraps: I cut my food wraps a variety of sizes, anywhere from 5″x5″ to 12″x12″.
Snack pouches: My favourite snack pouches use a rectangle of fabric about 10″x4.5″, but I made a variety of snack pouch sizes too, to accomodate some of our oddly-shaped favourite snacks. You can get some elastic ready too right now if you want. Any sewing elastic will work ok. I used the elastic that they use to tie a new pair of shoes together when you buy them. For my favourite snack pouch with this elastic, the elastic length works well at 9″.
Step 3: Sew the side seams of the snack pouch
(skip this step if you are just making food wraps)
Fold the snack pouch fabric roughly into thirds. The top layer will be the closing flap – unfold this. The remaining fold is what you stitch in place. A simple line of stitching (either by machine or by hand) is all it needs on each side.
Step 4: Sew the elastic on
(skip this step if you are just making food wraps)
Secure both ends of the elastic to the edge of what will be the top flap of your snack pouch with a few stitches. You can tie a knot first, and then stitch the knot down. You should be able to stretch the elastic loop comfortably around the entire pouch to hold it closed.
As a side note, the first time I made these I made the mistake of coating the fabric in the beeswax mixture first, and THEN cutting it to size and stitching everything. This was really mucky for both my sewing scissors AND my sewing machine — I really don’t recommend it! Not only that, but if you use these regularly you will need to periodically recoat them with the mixture, so you’ll get used to working with them already stitched up anyway.
Step 5: Melt the beeswax mixture
Now the fun part! Get your mason jar and add in your ingredients.
For the snack pouches:
- 30g beeswax
- 1-3 tsp jojoba oil
For the tacky food wraps, add:
- 10g (or more) pine resin
Put the jar into a pot of water on the stove on medium-low heat. You may want to dedicate an old spoon to this project for stirring (you CAN clean this stuff off, but it’s extra work). You don’t want to cook it – just barely melt it. Once it’s melted, turn the heat way down to low and leave it on the burner to keep the mixture fluid while you work.
Note that I have found these quantities to be very approximate, and I often “wing it”. The beeswax provides most of the protective properties of your wrap, so you want lots of it. The oil softens the beeswax to make it more pliable and less prone to cracking, so if you find your wraps crack more than you like, add more oil next time. The pine resin makes it tacky so it sticks to things. I’ve tried two different packages of pine resin, and one was more sticky than the other for some reason, so I just add however much pine resin seems to work to my liking. If you finish the wraps and the coating isn’t what you were hoping for, just adjust the proportions and coat the same fabric again.
Step 6: Lay out your fabric and drizzle the mixture on
The internet suggests lots of ways to do this part, but this is what I have found to be the quickest, easiest, and most reliable in terms of consistent results.
Lay out a double layer of parchment paper somewhere where you can iron. If you have a glass-ceramic stovetop, this is ideal! Mark the parchment paper with the word “WAX” on the sides that will be in contact with the beeswax mixture – you really don’t want to accidentally flip the paper over at some point and get wax all over your stove or your iron.
Put your fabric in between the papers. Take off the top paper for a moment and drizzle on some of your beeswax mixture like so:
Step 7: Iron
Put the top layer of paper back on and iron it. You can use the iron to gently push bubbles of the mixture around until the mixture is completely soaked in.
In the above photo, you can see areas that are soaked, and areas that are not. Just keep drizzling more mixture and ironing until everything seems well-saturated. Don’t worry about “glueing” the layers together – they separate easily when you’re done.
If you think you put too much on, you’ll notice that you can push bubbles of mixture to the edges of the fabric with the iron. Just push a few bubbles off the fabric and onto the paper, and you can scrape them back into your jar later.
That’s it!
Cool your mixture in the jar, put the lid on, and label it and store it for next time.
The wraps and snack pouches can be washed gently in cold water whenever needed. I use them daily for about a year before I feel they need a recoat. Then I just pull out my jar, add a bit more ingredients if it’s low, and iron away and I’m good for another year.
The tacky wraps really do a good job of sticking, especially to itself. Just a gentle press to close, and it sticks. If it’s not sticking for you, try again with a lot more pine resin.
Good luck! If I missed any details, feel free to ask.
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