My Attempt to Make Reusable Sandwich Bags

Earlier this week, I posted about making your own reusable sandwich bags or sandwich wraps. I have really been intrigued with the idea and kept thinking to myself that this was something I could do with or without a tutorial to follow.

Today, I had a bit of unexpected free time on my hands so I thought I'd give it a whirl. So I set out to make a draft baggie. :) Knowing this would be going in my husband's lunch box, I had to be careful about the material I used. I knew he would not appreciate flowers or lace. :) But I really didn't have any other material on hand that I thought would be suitable. Ah, but he did have an old, worn out pair of summer-weight camouflage Army pants that he couldn't wear any more. So I took my handy dandy little scissors and started snipping. :) Camouflage is much more manly than roses.

Briefly, I cut out two rectangles of fabric approximately 7"x8". Since I had no waterproof nylon on hand to use as the liner, I simply took a ziploc bag and cut off the zipper part. Putting the fabric pieces right sides together, I put the ziploc on top and sewed them together on three sides.

After sewing them together, I turned them right side out and basically ended up with a lined pocket...the ziploc being the liner. I turned under a 1/4" of fabric on the top un-sewed edge and pressed. I then turned it under another 1" and pressed again. It is this edge that I sewed the velcro to, making sure that I was also catching the top of the ziploc as I sewed. And that was pretty much it.

I probably won't make any more of these until I can get some waterproof nylon for the lining. It'll be much more durable than the ziploc...and the whole point in making these is to make a durable product that will replace the ziploc bags...saving me money. :) But I will be interested in seeing how long this lasts.

The picture below shows the finished product. You can't really tell that it's lined with a ziploc bag here, but it's there. :) Once it's been used, I'll just turn it wrong side out and wipe clean with a damp cloth....let it dry and it'll be ready to re-use. At first, I wondered how I'd like the velcro closure, but I think it'll work great. It seals well enough that you could put Cheerios in here and not lose a one. :) (Pay no attention to loose strings...this is just a "draft".) :)

The only other thing I'll do differently next time is I'll cut my fabric into bigger pieces. The end product here was only about 6"x6". That's plenty big enough for a sandwich made from storebought bread, but I think I'd like it bigger....maybe 7"x7".
I also got to thinking that I might make different size bags: sandwich size, snack size, etc... And then I got to thinking again that these would be great for a baby shower gift...find some cutesy "baby" material...make a few for the diaper bag...maybe one big enough to hold a baby bottle, one snack size bag for Cheerios, one to hold homemade baby wipes, and on and on and on and I'm still thinking!! :)

These would definitely be easy to make in quantity...especially if you had all your fabric pieces cut out and ready to sew together. I would think you could make 8-10 in an hour or so....but that's just my guess. I had a lot of fun making this and am looking forward to making more. Maybe I'll put up a photo tutorial later....maybe. :)