Cloth on Osborne: Loving the Snack Bags

You may have noticed if you’ve been visiting my ETSY shop that I am now making reusable cloth snack bags. This is a relatively new venture on my part, but the manufacture of the snack bag is the same as my wet bags, so you can expect the same quality craftsmanship.

How it all began…

It started with my kitchen wet bag and a stash of “seconds” wipes which I use as un-paper towels. It really started to irk me that I could eliminate the additional cost of purchasing paper towels but I was unable to totally eradicate plastic baggies from my kitchen. I did have a few cloth snack bags that my Aunt Judi gave me as a gift several years ago and we did use these sometimes (usually when we had run out of the plastic variety!). So what was the problem?! I believe the lack of use was for two reasons:

The first:

These bags, although beautifully crafted (Aunt Judi is a quilter), were made with Velcro closures. Velcro is really not my favorite for a snack bag. Not only does it accumulate crumbs and gunk from the sandwich/snack, but it also will start to collect other gross things when washed in the machine with your other laundry…like hair. Yuck! Velcro is also very noisy. Not a great choice for carrying a snack to church. Imagine us sitting in service when our five year old decides to start consuming her snack *enter very loud Velcro sound*.

The second:

There just never seemed to be enough baggies. In addition to Aunt Judi’s 4 or so bags I had a few bags which I had attempted to sew in my early days of sewing. These were lined with PUL (not a great choice for a snack bag- I’ll explain this later), and had a variety of closures (buttons, fold over, etc…). They quickly ran out. With three of us taking lunch to work, this small supply only lasted a couple of days.

Let me introduce you to the snack bag that works for me.

I’ll be the first to admit- these bags are pretty simple! The exterior is constructed of 100% cotton fabric, the interior is a white ripstop nylon fabric. The bag is sealed with a high quality YKK zipper. I also offer the option of adding on a strap with a snap, which I think is great for little kids who still travel in a stroller. Snap the strap onto the stroller and most messy spills will be avoided.

Why do I use ripstop nylon to line the bags? Why not PUL or ProCare? The simplest answer to this is that I have not found evidence that PUL and ProCare are food safe. A have found many sources that claim that the ripstop nylon is foodsafe. Not to mention, although the ripstop nylon is not waterproof, it is very water resistant, lightweight, super durable and has a nice finish that works well with food products.

I can make my snack bags in just about any size. My regular sizes are as follows: