Introduction: Guardians of the Galaxy Wallet With Card Holder

About: I'm a maker by nature but not by profession. I do all sorts of creative stuff and I want to share these things with you. I will mainly be posting all sorts of crafts on instructables for now but maybe I'll do …

I saw the new Guardians of the galaxy movie and had an idea to build a casette tape wallet inspired by the movie.This is a cheap and easy build and does not require many tools. The cost of this build was around 2€. The video is not a tutorial so I decided to write one altough the internet is full of casette tape wallet tutorials.

Step 1: Tools and Materials

As mentioned this build is extremely cheap and doen't require many tools. here's the list of tools and materials I used (I wrote the minimum tools and materials you need with bold):

Hot glue gun (some other types of glue can also be used)

Wire cutters

Screwdriver

Dremel (not necessary)

Scissors

Needle and thread (If you want a card holder)

Elastic band (If you wast a card holder)

Old casette

Zipper (mine was 25cm long)

Fabric of your own choosing (for the inside and "hinge")

Paint thinner (if you wish to remove old labels)

New labels

Step 2: Opening the Casette and Removing the Labels

Easiest way to do this is to choose a casette tape that has no label and is welded (does not have screws). Opening the casette can be done by opening the screws with a small screwdriver. Don't throw the screws away since you can glue them back on so you don't have empty holes in the corners o your casette. I you have a casetta which doen't have screws in the corners you casette is welded. In this case you need to start carefully pulling the two halves of the casette apart from the bottom where you can see the tape. I would use a large srewdriver which can be used to crack the welding open.

If you want a custom label and putting the new label on top of the old one is not an option you need to find a way to remove the label without damaging the casette. I tried multiple chemicals and none of them worked really well. In my case I believe the glue on the label had reacted with the plastic. Mineral spirit was not working so I swiched to paint thinner. You should do some testing to the inside of the casette so you can see how the casette will react with the chemicals. The paint thinner almost started to melt the casette but I managed to pull it off anyways. You should not use acetone since acetone will make the plastic very dull looking and clear plastic will be ruined. To get the label to peel off nicely I applied the paint thinner on the label making it wet and let it sit for a minute or two. After that the label should peel off easily and you can use a rag with some paint thinner to rub off the remaining glue.

Step 3: Trimming the Casette Case

After opening the casette you want to remove all the loose parts from the inside. Then you need to trim all the little pieces of plastic sticking out. This can be done with wirecutters of with a dremel if you have access to one. Take off everthing sticking out except the sides of the casette. If you leave a lot of high spots, the lining of the wallet will not be flat.

Step 4: Adding the Zipper

This is the hardest part of the project. Be careful not to get any glue to the zipper because thet will ruin your project (this happened to me). I glued the zipper on one side at the time as seen on the video. I did not put any glue to the corners first because that gave me more flexibility when glueing the next section. Also I folded the corners before glueing the next section. After glueng each section I came back and glued the corner in the folded position so i dont have any holes in the corners. I found it easier to goo the whole glueing process with the zipper open. Remember to check that you start glueing your halves of the casette to the zipper as close to the same position as possible (start the zipper from same place on each side like in the picture). If you don't do this you will end up with a crooked wallet. You should allways double-check what you are doing when you are glueing because if you mess up your project will be ruined.

Step 5: Adding the Lining

I am using the lining on my wallet also as the "hinge". I had a piene of fake leather laying around and I thought it would do the job well. Because the hot glue does not tick to the "leather side" of the fabric I had to turn that inside. I sew a piece of elastic band to hold my cards and money so they don't fall off everytime a open the wallet. Then I simply cut the fabric roughly to right size and glued it along the edges of the halves of the casette.

Step 6: The New Label

I printed new label which I had designed on photoshop to replicate the Awesome mix labels, except these did not have the text on them. I used basic printer and cheap sticker to print on but it turned out ok. At this point I could have written awesome mix or whatever I want on the label, but I chose not to. Next I decided to add a layer of plastic on to of the sticker to protect it since im pretty sure the printing would otherwise wear off rather quickly in my pocket. I placed the sticker, which I had cut to right size, exactly where i wanted it to bee and used a small pieces of clear tape to keep it there. Then I put the sticker in place as seen on the video. This is a nice little trick to allways have your stickers just where you want them to be. Now you are finished and you can go play Starlord with your friends.

Thank you for reading this whole instructable. Please go watch the video also and let me know what you think about it. It's my first video and I want to improve my work in the future.

Before and After Contest 2017

Participated in the
Before and After Contest 2017