When we toured around France and Spain last summer, we put together a playlist of music at each main stop that we made and named it after the location. The idea being that, after having spent a while in a certain place, we’d make a mix of the most popular songs we listened to during that period / appropriate music for the place / experience / feelings we had there / etc. – thus preserving some awesome memories in the process. Every time we listen to one of these mixes we’re transported right back to each location.
So recently, we put some of these mixes onto CD for friends and family which we still haven’t seen since we left the UK. Kind of to do something nice for them and also so they can get a taste for our hippyfied travels around Europe. (They were planned for dispatch at Christmas ’07 but didn’t quite get done until May ’08 – not bad eh?) For the artwork we used a photo either of the location we were in or something significant relating to our time in that place: Biarritz got a surfing pic; Léon got the interior of a tiny french car (it’s a tiny town and we saw lotsa quirky little cars there); Ondres Plage got the inside of our van’s curtains because it pissed down so much; St Flour got a blurry spooky night-time photo of the inside of a weird office or something (it’s a spooky town all built out of dark granite and we wandered around there one night taking eerie photos).
Rather than putting the CD’s into the rubbish plastic containers which blank discs often come in, we got all Blue Peter and made our own. Being a nerd, I documented the process in the hope that it might be of use to someone else. Also, I’ve always secretly wanted to be that hippy looking guy in a DIY craft book. So, here we go…
You can view this as a Flickr photoset if you like. Otherwise, read on, soldier!
1. Pre-printed and designed covers + tools for the job. An old piece of MDF cutting board so we don’t make a mess of those lovely floorboards:
2. Trim your card down to 13×45cm:
3. Using the cover design as a template, score the card (don’t cut it!) across to make your first fold. I pressed lightly and went back and fore about 3 times:
4. Get the cover out of the way, turn the card around and use your metal rule to fold against; nice and slowly does it:
5. Pull the metal rule out of the way and sharpen that fold with your finger tips, taking care to keep the edge straight:
6. Fold number two. Similar process as before:
7. Making the fold again. I tried to keep away from the other fold so as not to make a mess of it:
8. Ouilá! This is basically the carcass of the cover, ready for gluing, etc.:
9. Cutting the slot for the CD to go into. Cut a slot approx 12cm across – ie not all the way to the edges. I made the incision approx ¼ of the way up the card:
10. At the end of the CD slot cut, I made two very small vertical cuts to stop the slot from being torn to the edge by clumsy folk! Just make two very short (like 4mm) incisions at either end of the slot:
11. Glue time! Put plenty of glue all over the back of the panel into which you’ve put the CD slot. Important: DO NOT glue beneath the CD slot line – just in the larger area above it. Razz it on there and go right-up to the edges (though try not to leave any thick layers of glue at the edges):
12. Fairly quickly after applying the glue, fold the panel down and gently but firmly press/rub the area to stick it down:
13. This needs a bit of weight on it for a short while to let the glue adhere properly. I chose a small stack of old XBOX games for this, which is a fairly modern approach, no? No? Okay. Leave them there for a bit because we’re going to use the time to apply some spray mount / pritt stick to the cover…
14. Go outside (unless you’re in a nice large ventilated room where your flatmates won’t get cross if you get glue onto the furniture) and spray an even coating of spray-mount onto the back of your cover design. If you do it the way I did on the photo, you’ll get it all over your wrist. Better to do it on a surface, really. As I said you could just use Pritt Stick here if you want:
15. Carefully stick down the CD cover onto the front panel of the CD case (the panel which closes down over the CD slot to close the case):
16. There we have it! A basic CD case with a front cover and a neat-o CD slot. This wasn’t quite finished for our project however…
17. We made a card insert with a small story on it so I slotted that in with the CD:
18. And the CD went on top, like so:
19. Various CD cases with different designs:
20. In my cover design, I left a space for the name(s) of the individual people we were giving the CD to. To write on the card, I bought a white-ink pen from the local art supplies shop. I tested it a wee bit on the front cover of a music magazine – just to get the ink flowing evenly and to see how long it took to dry, etc. Also to see how fast my hand moves when I write – look at that!:
21. After testing / practice, I wrote on the CD covers to give ‘em that ‘personal’ touch (it’s all the rage right now in craft-consumer circles):
22. The final product:
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Comments:
Spinner 28.07.08 #
Awesome dude…glad I had one of these made for me from you guys! Awesome.