DIY Life

Awesome craft idea spotted in the latest issue of Wondertime: DIY necktie coffee sleeve. It's cute and stylish, yet easy for the kids to make... maybe with a little help from Mom.

Here's what you'll need:
1 stylin' necktie that dad doesn't want anymore...er, one that you're sure dad doesn't want anymore!
1 two-inch strip of 3/4-inch self-adhesive Velcro

Here's what you do:
Step 1. Cut the tie 15 inches from the wide, pointy end. Put the thin end aside.
Step 2. Peel backing from one side of the Velcro and stick it to the underside of the tie, one inch from the point.

My husband usually takes sandwiches to work for his lunch. I always cringe when I see how many plastic sandwich baggies we go through in a month, and have often wondered if there was a way to reduce or eliminate using them. The short answer is yes.

The Small Object has come up with an awesome way to make reusable sandwich wraps. The wraps are shaped like an octagon, so that it can be used to wrap odd shaped bread or wraps, and can also be used as a placemat. The wrap is made out of vinyl coated fabric for the interior and regular fabric for the exterior. Velcro closes the sandwich wrap.

This is a great way to use up some of that extra fabric you have laying around. The pattern and instructions are easy to follow, and in a short amount of time you can easily whip one up for each member of your sandwich eating family.

via: Craft

When it comes to packing sandwiches, there all kinds of ecologically minded alternatives to baggies, foils, plastic and other disposable wraps. And they all have their drawbacks.

Those cool aluminum boxes, for instance, are kind of pricey. I'm a huge fan of traditional Indian tiffin carriers and Japanese bento boxes, but most don't provide a snug enough fit for a sandwich. There's always parchment paper, although it isn't exactly leak-proof. And while waxed paper bags that are "natural" (unbleached, non-toxic when incinerated, won't contaminate groundwater, etc.) are a convenient alternative, they aren't biodegradable -- and they're still disposable and therefore waste-generating. Most promising, there are high-tech food wraps that are edible, fortified with vitamins and minerals, and/or anti-microbial, but these aren't commercially available, as far as I know.

Oh, the agony!

I'd nearly given up when Jennifershmoo from Vegan Lunch Box turned me on to the Wrap-N-Mat, a reusable sandwich wrap made from a coated fabric that doubles as a placemat when it's unfolded. But the off-gassing smell she reports sounds more than just off-putting. Then along came one of her crafty readers to the rescue, suggesting a DIY version of the Wrap-N-Mat using PUL (polyurethane laminate) fabric that you can purchase to sew your own cloth diapers (so it's supposed to be leak-proof and non-toxic). Something I'm definitely going to try.

Do you have any good sandwich wrap solutions?