Homemade Reusable Sandwich Bags

*Update: After initially writing this post I started making these with water resistant ripstop nylon on the inside. It is more food safe and much lighter for an all together better result! I currently use ripstop nylon to make super compact travel diaper changing pads for sale in my Etsy shop, Seams to Streams.*



When I learned of the existence of reusable sandwich bags, I went googling to see what it was all about. I found this blog with a very user friendly tutorial on how to make reusable snack bags yourself. I saw elsewhere (can't remember where), that someone had made a sandwich wrap, but lined it material from a vinyl table cloth instead of PUL.

We had a vinyl tablecloth I was getting ready to get rid of! I preferred the sandwich bag idea over a wrap, so I combined the two ideas. I also had a couple of big pretty cloth napkins that had been given to me for sewing, so I used those as the outer fabric.

How to Make Reusable Sandwich Bags

1. First, I cut equal sized rectangles of fabric and tablecloth. I used an actual sandwich bag for sizing, so that folded in half the rectangles were 1 or 2 inches bigger than a sandwich bag:



2. Next, I placed the two rectangles with the pretty sides in and sewed them together at the ends. Just two straight lines! :)



3. Next, I turned the sewn together rectangles so that the fronts were facing out, and put a strip of velcro on the vinyl side, leaving room on the edges for sewing together later. In order to place the velcro accurately without bothering with too much measuring, I went ahead and stuck an equal size piece of velcro right onto the piece I'd already stuck. Than I could fold the material and just unpeel and stick the other side on.


4. I folded the rectangle with the vinyl/velcro side out (inside out), and sewed the two sides together. Just two more straight lines! :)


5. I turned it back, and the job was close to done, but something had to be done about that inner seam if I was going to carry a peanut butter sandwich in this!


6. So finally I sewed just two more straight lines down the sides with the bag turned right side out to enclose those seams. Here is the final product from the outside:

And from the inside:You can see it is the same size between the seams as a regular sandwich bag:





Just wipe and reuse!I've already tried it. It works great! Of course, you cannot put really hot things in there or heat it.

This has inspired quite a few more "reusable" ideas that I CAN'T WAIT to try! I'll keep you posted. I also found some beautiful "vintagey" fabric at a consignment store that I plan to make more of these with.