Clear Simple CD Case

Make a simple CD case for all your mixtapes out of a sheet of printable transparency paper. This will also work with normal paper and cardstock.

I made this for a mix CD contest for the band, the One AM Radio and their album This Too Will Pass, and wanted to submit mine in something unique.

Step 1: Gather Materials and Tools

You won't need much for this. I had all of this lying around my house.

materials:
1 sheet of printable transparency
knife (x-acto type works well)
straight edge
computer
printer
heat gun (optional)

saftey first:
When using a knife, be careful!

Step 2: Enter Your Playlist and Design Your Cover

I made my design in Powerpoint, which I'll admit isn't the most efficient or robust way to make it, but it works and more people have powerpoint than, say, Adobe Illustrator. Note that it's pretty close to the edges of an 8.5x11" so you might have to fiddle with margins when printing. I got this to print without a problem on my HP Laserjet 4L.

Download the file and open it. The left is the back cover. You can put your tracks here if you want. The right side is the front cover. I put the title of my mix and my name on there.

Step 3: Print and Cut It Out

Print it out. I'd suggest testing it with regular paper before printing on the transparency.

Cut it out along all the solid lines. Then cut along the 6 dotted lines on the left side (4 horizontal, 2 diagonal).

Step 4: Fold It Up

Fold all the tabs on the right side along the dotted lines. Then fold along the center dotted line.

Next slip the four vertical tabs into the respective cuts in the back panel. The last tab acts as a way to close the CD case. The corners of it slip into the diagonal slits in the back panel.

Now's a good time to crease all the folds very firmly.

Step 5: Put Your CD in and (optional) Use a Heat Gun to Flatten It

You can now put your awesome mix CD in.

Mine was a little puffy at the end, so I hit it with a heat gun (careful: hot!) and flattened all the folds a bit better.

Step 6: Comments

I think this turned out alright, but here are a few comments.

Printing on transparency works pretty well, but, at least mine, wasn't as magical as I wanted it to look (floating text).

The closing mechanism/ tab isn't as easy to use as I'd like. Feel free to improve on this design if you'd like.

This could also work well with card stock and just plain paper. I'd like to see it with transparency or other thin plastic with the letters laser-cut out of it or laser-scored onto it rather than printed on it. You could also try etching the letters on (with a method like this instructable ) a thin piece of metal (shim stock or something equally as thin), though folding the tabs into the slots would be quite a bit more difficult with that material.