beeswax food wrap project

Hi, folks! Happy Friday. I'm a bit bleary-eyed today, and am home from work with a pitiful little guy (see Instagram photo here) who has pneumonia. He and I spent several hours at the hospital last night. He's resting right now, and hopefully the meds will start taking effect soon. 

In other news, I have a fun, inexpensive, practical quick, and super simple weekend project for you that I made last weekend. That's setting some high expectations, I know, but really - making these is worth a try. It had been on my list for weeks, and I'm so glad I finally made them!

We don't really use paper towels in our house, and use reusable glass food storage containers most of the time. But sometimes a dish of leftovers gets popped into the fridge with plastic wrap on it, which isn't my favourite thing. 

Enter beeswax food wraps. They're intended as a substitute for plastic wrap. Essentially, they're cotton fabric, permeated with beeswax. Although these food wraps shouldn't be used with meat, since they can't be washed in hot water, they're fair game for covering more or less anything else. For particularly sloshy things like soup, I will probably still use a lidded glass dish, but these are great for most other kinds of leftovers.

They're simple to make. I more or less followed these instructions, using a 100% cotton dish towel I found at Frenchy's for 25 cents. Just cut the fabric to the size you'd like (you can easily trim it afterward if needed) and place it on a foil lined baking sheet. Heat your oven to 170. I found that I needed quite a bit more beeswax than pictured in the instructions I linked to, and what worked the very best was a sheet of thin beeswax sandwiched between two pieces of fabric. Place it in the oven for 10 minutes, or until the beeswax has entirely melted and permeated the fabric. Immediately remove the fabric from the foil sheet, and just wave it back and forth for a minute until it cools and firms up. You're all set!

To use, just mold the wrap around the edge of your dish. It takes a minute for your hands to warm the wax, and it's a bit tacky, but try to relax and enjoy it. They can be washed with cool water and dish soap. (Warm or hot water will begin to melt the wax.) 

So far, I'm a huge fan! I'm experimenting with various sizes and shapes to fit our bowls, and am planning to make a few more sizes this weekend.

BeesWrap makes beautiful wraps, which I would love to try. They're a bit on the pricey side, so since I had the materials on hand, I couldn't justify buying them. I'm curious how the texture would be different from the straight beeswax, since they use jojoba oil and resin as well. I'll be they're lovely, and their site and photos are gorgeous. I'll happily accept donations!

Have a lovely weekend. Adam's birthday is on Sunday, and the forecast is exclusively sunny in our neck of the woods!