Christmas in July: Reusable Cling Wrap

I found a unique, practical, and creative gift I'm looking forward to using this year: Reusable Cling Wrap! I found this post from Nourishing Joy: DIY Homemade Cling Wrap: A Natural Plastic Wrap Alternative.  I was thinking that this would be a great way to wrap homemade food for gift giving! This reusable cling wrap can cover bowls, plates, or you can wrap homemade bread in it. 

If you have some furry friends who are part of the family, you can use it to fill their stockings with homemade treats too! 

While I love the idea of this reusable cling wrap, the first time I tried it, I made a crazy mess! Never having used beeswax before, I did not know how messy it was. It got EVERYWHERE! My husband said, "Now we know where the saying, 'Mind your own beeswax' came from!" You really do have to mind where that beeswax is going! So I encourage you to check out the original post from Nourishing Joy, but I'm going to show you how I have done it differently after my first messy attempt.

You will need:

• Beeswax (click here to get 100% organic beeswax pearls)
• 100% cotton cut to the size you want your cling wrap to be (a fat quarter can make one really big piece for a rectangular pan or you can cut it into 2 bowl-size pieces)
• pinking sheers (optional) to keep the edges of your fabric from fraying
• scraper
• wax paper
• sponge brush
• disposable container

1. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Cover the bottom of your container with beeswax pearls. Put them in the oven until melted. I don't think you can over heat them at this temperature, so just keep checking to see when they have melted.
I learned the hard way that it is practically impossible to clean beeswax off of whatever container you use to melt the beeswax, so I suggest using something disposable like an aluminum loaf pan.  I didn't originally, so the pan I used became my beeswax pan!

2. Dip a sponge brush into the melted beeswax. I suggest a sponge brush because you will need to throw it away when you're done. The beeswax hardens pretty quickly, so don't take your time! If it hardens before you're done, just pop it back in the oven.

3. With your fabric on top of wax paper, paint the beeswax onto your fabric. You don't need a lot! Just enough to cover the piece you have.

4. Personally, I could not get the beeswax on without clumping. Whether I dipped the whole thing into the pan (which was a crazy mess!) or painted it on (so much easier), it left clumps. Using a scraper to smooth it out worked great! Just scrape as much off the top of fabric as you can. It pushes the beeswax into the fabric and gives it a nice smooth feel. It feels pretty amazing! You can also just throw the part you scraped off back into the pan and remelt it.

Now you can try making your own reusable cling wrap! Your wrapping will be beautiful, and it will be part of the gift because they can reuse it. I made this tag using Canva to attach to your homemade cling wrap so people will know how to use it. Just click on the picture below to print. There are 4 on a page.

Now I'm going to try making some holiday-themed reusable cling wrap to make it festive!

Here are some of the recipes I'm going to make and wrap up this Christmas:

• Lemon-Thyme Tea Bread from Taste of Home
• Peanut Butter Banana Dog Treats from Damn Delicious

Happy Holidays (in July)!