Forgot Password?
Written by Miranda Huey   
Share |
Tuesday, 14 September 2010

MP3 Accessories

Why Make a Cover for Your Cell Phone, iPod, or MP3 Player? Reusing old clothing fabric or plastic bottles to make a cover for your MP3 player or phone may seem more like an arts and crafts project than an environmentally friendly action, but it can be quite helpful for the planet. Making your own cover instead purchasing one saves resources that would otherwise be used to manufacture one in a factory. You'll also save money and lengthen the lifespan of your device!

BENEFITS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT:
Making fabric and plastic bottles does a lot of damage to the environment through resource depletion, pollution, and energy use. In addition, plastics and man-made fabrics like nylon, polyester, and acrylic are made up of fossil fuels, which pollute the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. Recycling a little fabric can go a long way. Protecting your precious electronic device is also good for the environment since making your phone or MP3 player last as long as possible will prevent you from buying unnecessary replacements. This is important because manufacturing these electronic devices requires mining natural resources and using large amounts of energy. In addition, phones and MP3 players contain a variety of ‘heavy' metals such as lead, cadmium, and brominated flame-retardants that are hazardous, and when disposed of improperly are emitted into the environment.

BENEFITS FOR YOUR WALLET:
Many phones and MP3 player covers and sleeves can cost from $10-$30. When you make it yourself, you only need fabric and sewing materials. And because it's completely custom-made for your particular MP3 player, you won't need to pay extra for any custom design from a retailer.

BENEFITS FOR YOUR ELECTRONIC DEVICE:
You take your phone and MP3 player everywhere with you. You’ll take it in and out of your pocket, purse, backpack, or even laptop bags. Each time, they'll be put next to other objects that might scratch, dent, and even break your MP3 player. The iPod nano, for example, has notoriously had a fragile screen that easily breaks. Protecting it with a cover can help keep it unscratched and damage-free.

Cost: Low
Using old fabric or old plastic bottles eliminates the need for additional spending, and you probably already have most of the other materials around your house. Making your own cover is a good way to reuse fabric or plastic that would otherwise be rendered useless and thrown away.

Time and effort: Moderate
A pouch or cover is a relatively simple thing to make. If you want to do this by hand, it can take around half an hour. If you have a sewing machine and have had experience using it, it will only take several minutes. It is important to take proper care of your possessions in order to maximize their life span and thus reducing the need for replacements. By decreasing replacements you will also be reducing waste.

Making a Pouch out of Plastic Bottles
Materials:
Soft Plastic Bottle (water or soda)
Knife/Scissors
Metal Pan
Tin Foil
Wood or Cardboard
Tacks/Nails
Hacksaw1

Instructions:

  1. Measure each dimension of your phone or MP3 player with extreme precision. Or, trace every side of the electronic device onto a piece of paper. If there are any buttons sticking out of the device, leave a little extra room to accommodate them.
  2. Using those dimensions, create a wooden or cardboard replica of the rectangular shape of the phone or MP3 player.2 Because the plastic will shrink around the replica, try to use wood or very sturdy cardboard.
  3. Take out the knife or scissors and a soft plastic bottle. Cut off the slanted top and any curved bottom so that all you are left with is a round and hollow plastic tube.
  4. Cut once in a straight line from the bottom to the top of the cylinder and flatten out the plastic to make a relatively flat and rectangular plastic surface.
  5. Fold the plastic surface around the replica until all the plastic is completely folded around the replica. Leave one of the smaller sides without any plastic. You may want to let the side with the headphones plug remain open so you can plug in some headphones while the cover is on.
  6. Nail or tack the folded plastic onto the replica. Although this will put some holes in the plastic, it will prevent the plastic from unfolding and sticking out as it shrinks.3
  7. Preheat the oven to 550 degrees Fahrenheit. Lay some tin foil completely over a metal pan. Place the replica in the middle of the tinfoil on the side that is not covered by the plastic. Make sure that the replica is stable enough not to fall over.
  8. Once the oven is 550° F, place the pan into the oven and watch it closely. Make sure that it doesn’t fall down, since that could melt the plastic to the tin foil.
  9. After a couple of minutes have passed, check to see whether the plastic has sufficiently melted around the replica.4 When it has, take it out of the oven and leave it to cool for another few minutes.
  10. Once it’s cooled down, just take out the replica and insert your MP3 player or phone into the opening!5
Making a Fabric Cover
1. A temporary cover is a complete pouch in which you store your phone or MP3 player while keeping it in your pocket, purse, or other bag. If you always find scratches on it from your keys or pens next to it, this is probably the best cover for you.

2. A permanent cover leaves the screen, interface, and any openings still accessible. The advantages of this are that your phone or MP3 player is always protected. If you tend to drop it easily, this is probably the best cover for you.

Materials:
Scissors
Thread
Needle (or sewing machine)
Used fabric that you like the look and feel of Paper
Pen
Button, Velcro, Snap Buttons
Ruler
Iron

Instructions for a Temporary Cover:
1. Use the paper and pencil to trace out the outline of the phone or MP3 player. Place the phone or MP3 player on the corner of the paper, so you only have to draw the other two lines. Cut out the outline.

2. Measure the last unmeasured dimension of the phone or MP3 player, the depth. If you lay the phone or MP3 player flat on the table, this is the height off the table.

3. Lay your used cloth on a clean, flat surface. Put the inside of the fabric (duller and less colored) facing up.

4. To cut the right length of the material, consider the longer side of your paper outline as a unit. Measure two of these units along the cloth and add 2-5 inches on one of them and 1 inch on the other. Look at the depth of your phone or MP3 player. The shorter the depth, the longer one side should be compared to the other side, in order to be as tight as possible. These will become the lengths of two pieces of fabric. Mark the lines with a ruler as parallel as possible to the other edge of the fabric.

5. To cut the width of the material, just trace the width of the outline on the cloth once and add ¾ of an inch to 1 inch. Mark this line with a ruler.

6. Now you should have an outline for the pouch. Place your phone or MP3 player in the center of the outline. There should be about 3/8th of an inch on each side for the seam. If there is too much or too little, adjust the lines on the fabric until they seem like they'd work.

7. Cut the fabric out along the new lines. Place the shorter piece onto the longer piece, with the inside of the fabric facing outward (so the seams don't show on the outside).

8. Choose a thread that matches closely with the fabric. Sew the vertical edges together, leaving only the opening and the flap. Backstitch (sew over again in reverse direction) areas near the opening, to make it sturdier to flip inside out.

9. Flip the fabric inside out. To make it look more seamless, iron the seams thoroughly.

10. Decide how you want to fasten your pouch. If you decide to make it with velcro, you can either iron it on (with iron-on versions) or sew it on. If you decide to make it with buttons or snap buttons, you can sew these on as well.

11. Put your phone or MP3 player inside and close the flap—enjoy!

Instructions for a Temporary Cover:
1. Lay the phone or MP3 player flat face down on the piece of paper. Using a pencil, outline the edges onto the paper. Turn the phone or MP3 player onto one side, and outline it adjacent to the first. Lay the phone or MP3 player flat again and turn it onto another side to outline it again. Repeat this process until there are all four rectangles around the center outline. Then, after the last turn, before turning it back flat, turn it again in the same direction onto its back. There should now be 6 rectangles.

2. To make a flap, lengthen either the top rectangle or the bottom (depending on where the ports are). Depending on the size of the phone or MP3 player, lengthen this side by at 2-5 inches.

3. Trace the screen, buttons, wheel, or other ports on your phone or MP3 player and trace them back onto the outline template. If your fabric does not stretch easily, trace completely around the entire outline at a distance of a quarter of an inch around the edge.

4. Lay down the fabric on a clean, flat surface with the inside fabric (duller and less colored) facing up. Trace the entire outline onto the fabric, including any holes. Cut out the outline of the fabric. Then, cut out the holes. This can be achieved by folding over the cloth and cutting from the middle to the edge.

5. Choose a thread that matches closely with the fabric. Sew the edges together as they fit, leaving only the opening and the flap. Also stitch around the openings where the screen, buttons, wheel, and ports are, so they don't fray. Backstitch (sew again) areas near the opening, to make it sturdier.

6. Flip the fabric inside out. To make it look nice and seamless, iron the seams thoroughly.

7. Decide how you want to fasten your pouch. If you decide to make it with velcro, you can either iron it on (with iron-on versions) or sew it on. If you decide to make it with buttons or snap buttons, you can sew these on as well.

8. Put the phone or MP3 player inside and close the flap. Enjoy!

Browse all Greeniacs Guides Browse all Greeniacs Guides        Browse all Greeniacs Articles
_______________________________________________________________________________

1 http://www.instructables.com/id/Clear-Cover-FOR-YOUR-MP3-PLAYER/#step1
2 http://www.instructables.com/id/Clear-Cover-FOR-YOUR-MP3-PLAYER/step2/null/
3 http://www.instructables.com/id/Clear-Cover-FOR-YOUR-MP3-PLAYER/step3/null/
4 http://www.instructables.com/id/Clear-Cover-FOR-YOUR-MP3-PLAYER/step4/null/
5 http://www.instructables.com/id/Clear-Cover-FOR-YOUR-MP3-PLAYER/step5/null/




Add your comment
RSS comments

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Click here to Register.  Click here to login.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 28 June 2011 )

SEARCH GREENIACS.COM

Green Facts

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.