DIY for Environmentalists: Crafting, Making, Project How-to's, and more!
We use beeswax paper for so many things in our house: we make paper luminaries out of it, and weather-resistant buntings, and Christmas ornaments. I scrapbook with beeswax paper, coat newspaper clippings in it to preserve them, and dip sheets of poetry or old dictionary pages in melted beeswax to “antique” it. My girls use beeswax paper in any number of art and science projects, almost daily it seems.
Thank goodness for well-loved art supplies!
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Hi there! I'm Becky Striepe, a green crafter and vegan foodie living in Atlanta, Georgia with my husband and two cats. My mission is to make eco-friendly crafts and vegan food accessible to anyone who wants to give them a go.
Hello! My name is Bonnie Getchell and overall, I'm a craft nerd! I love making crafts, re-doing furniture, and anything along those lines. I especially love creating items that are from recycled materials like toilet paper rolls, bottles, etc.
I'm the lucky momma of two little blonde daddy-clones--we spend our days doing elaborate art projects, trashing the house, eating cheese cubes and oranges, and waiting for my partner to get home from his day job so we can pester him.
Kelly covers visual arts in and around Washington, DC for DCist and is editor of Crafting a Green World. Kelly has also been published by Bust Magazine and you can find her byline at Indie Fixx and Etsy’s Storque and has taught in Etsy’s virtual lab on the topic of green crafting.
I love doing paper crafts and I have been looking for a way to waterproof my projects! Thanks for posting this. As soon as I can find a good source of beeswax, I am going to try this.
great idea! must try soon
Could this work on fabric as well?
We usually paint beeswax on the wrong side of fabric to make beeswax fabric, which is a natural alternative to oilcloth or laminated cotton. I don’t see why you couldn’t dunk your fabric, though, if you had a use for fabric coated on both sides with beeswax.
I am trying to do a large sheet, and since it won’t fit in my crok poit,I have to paint it on. It cools and dries so fast, its too thick. Should I dilute it with turpentine or linseed oil?
I don’t know how diluting it would work–experiment time! Another possibility would be to thrift a big old baking pan with edges, put some beeswax in the pan, heat it in the oven (keep it under the flashpoint!), carefully remove it from the oven when the beeswax is liquid, and dip the paper into that.