Do It Myself Wrapping: It's My Beeswax

During a recent conversation with my uncle regarding all things political and of course the environment it came to my attention that maybe I'm not really doing enough in my day to day life to be "enviro-friendly". Although we recycle, use mostly re-usable bottles and straws, and buy "green" cleaning products for me it seemed as if maybe I could do more. Although I don't usually buy into "resolutions" I decided this year that maybe I'll set a few goals, one of them is to do more. Do more for the environment, do more to set an example that maybe someday our kids with emulate. So I'm starting with the elimination of wrappers and plastic sandwich bags.

But of course I'm still going to need to wrap left-overs and carry sandwiches. But how? Well if you're into wonderful environmental friendly ideas you probably already know about beeswax wraps. Which turns out are quite easy to make. I followed a tutorial by another mom blogger at mommypotamus.com if you haven't visited her site you should. She has great ideas and natural remedies. So here's what I did.

You will need

*organic beeswax pellets $9.99 on Amazon

*powdered food grade pine rosin (so the fabric will "cling") $17.79 on Amazon

*organic jojoba oil ( I used avocado oil) used my own

*100% cotton fabric ( Thinner the better) $10.00 7 pcs on Amazon

*parchment paper + cookie sheet

*paint brush you don't give an F about (Because you will ruin it)

The main things. Don't mind my kids random stickers and the half eaten butter. This is a lived in kitchen. #reallife

1. Preheat your oven to 225F

2. Cut your fabric to your preferred sizes. I did all 11x11 because it seemed like a good size.

3. Place parchment paper onto your cookie sheet, then lay your fabric over that.

4. Sprinkle the beeswax pellets across the fabric, then the rosin, then the oil. Make sure you get the edges of the fabric well covered.

It should look like this. I have zero finess when it comes to making things "pretty". But you should get the idea.

5. Place into the oven for about 5 minutes until everything is melted together.

6. Remove from oven take your paint brush and brush mixture over the fabric making sure to get edges and place back into over for a minute or two.

Once everything is melted together. Can anyone tell me where the orange came from? Bleeding colors of non-existence.

7. Once done you can wait a moment for the fabric to cool or use tongs to pull the fabric from the sheet and place somewhere to dry. I laid mine over my kitchen stools. But if you wanna be real fancy you can hang it from a hanger with clothing pins. But who has time for that? I mean you're making reusable food wraps here isn't that enough?

My finished product. See how happily it clings to this pie like your average stage 5 clinger.

And that's it. All done. It took me about 20-30 minutes to finish 3 of them. They will at first be really tacky feeling but after working with them that will mellow out.

There were specific instructions on how much of each ingredient to use. Which I followed to a T for the first one. From there I just kinda took the reigns and did my own thing. So if you really want me to bore you with that detail, and you aren't the throw caution to the wind kinda person, I guess this is for you.

According to the recipe of instructions you will need for the following:

8x8: 2 tsp beeswax, 2 tsp rosin, 1/2 tsp oil

11x11: 1 tbl beeswax, 1 tbl rosin, 1 tsp oil

14x14: 1 tbl + 2.5 tsp beeswax (what?), 1 tbl + 2.5 tsp rosin, 2.5 tsp oil

But again if you get the basic idea and wanna let your inner Martha Stewart (after she's smoked a phat blunt) out then just do it. This one thing is pretty cheap. I purchased everything through Amazon using Prime so I paid zero shipping. Note that there are cheaper options of rosin than what I bought so do whatever you can afford.

In all seriousness though...take a look around your house, at what you use everyday. How often are you just throwing out things that are one time use. Think about where that may end up. If you haven't Googled plastic in the ocean, because you like to be ignorant, then maybe you should. Visit your local landfill and see how many miles of land are currently unusable due to everyones unwanted/used things rotting in that ground. You don't have to be a tree hugging hippie to do a few things that will hopefully help the current state of this Earth. I'm not talking politically either. Even if you don't believe in climate change, or the effects of what single use plastics do etc no one is asking you to change your entire way of life. Just take you own personal mental note of how much trash you procure in a day, think of simple ways you can make a difference. You don't have to do it for you. Think of your children, your grand-children. Whatever your reason just take a minute to do more. Even if you don't and you think this is all non-sense, well fuck it I tried right!?

Thanks for reading this until the end, and hopefully if you try this you'll find it fun and will continue to do more enviro-friendly DIY around your house.

"One person can make a difference, and everyone should try." (name that president)