How to make your own waxed fabric

Diy Waxed Fabric

Why would you want to wax fabric? For quite a few reasons really, they are Eco friendly and cut down on the usage of plastic food wrap wastage. It contains no harmful chemicals to you or the environment. You can easily wash/wipe down and reuse time and time again.

You can make canvas shoes, fabric bags, jackets waterproof just by using this simple method. 

I wanted something, I could wrap up my children's sandwiches with, without having to run off to the supermarket every month to re-stock these bags, which quite frankly add to the compilation of landfill. I wanted a healthier alternative to plastic, so when I had a look online, waxed fabrics seemed quite expensive, so I decided to give it a go myself. 

what you will need:

100% cotton fabric a good size for sandwiches is 12" x 12" I made about 6 to start with.

(cut into whatever shape you desire circles squares etc, I opted for squares)

1-2 tbsp organic beeswax. 

a splash of olive oil

A small disposable paint brush (you can get these quite cheaply at the pound shop.

Waxed  - baking paper

Aluminium foil

Glass bowl (one you don't mind using for crafts) 

A pan

An oven tray

wooden clothes pegs

newspaper.

clothes airer 

First, you need to put your beeswax and your olive oil into your glass bowl, and set this bowl over some hot water in a pan and leave until its melted.

Second, you will need to prep your work space, place your newspaper on your worksurface. This eliminates the need of scrubbing off any beeswax spillage. Place some newspaper also underneath your indoor airer. 

Third, line your oven tray with baking paper, then pop this into your oven gas mark 3-4

Fourth, place some aluminium foil on top of your newspaper covered worksurface. Next place your fabric on top of the foil. 

Once the beeswax has melted take your paintbrush and dip it into the liquid wax. Paint this onto your fabric, but don't make it too thick. It will begin to cool immediately. once you have completely covered one side of the fabric, place it into the oven on your tray with the baking paper. Leave it for about a minute for it to fully saturate the fabric. 

Once this is done, carefully take your wax saturated fabric from the oven (careful the wax is hot, you may need a pair of thongs here, I didn't have any, so I used a pair of tweezers lol) Hang up onto your clothes airer with the wooden clothes pegs, and leave to dry.

Voila!! There you have it, re-useable, eco friendly sandwich wraps.

To clean these all you need is a little luke warm water with some natural soap, swish it around in the soapy water, wipe down and rinse then hang up to air dry. 

These are NOT machine washable.  

 

You can actually use them to wrap anything. In this pic I have wrapped my natural deodorant.

if you would like to purchase a waxed fabric from my store you can find it here