By Janice Headley • Photo by Rebecca Uhle
Courtesy of Venus Zine

SUPPLIES
• 1/4 yard of wool felt*, your choice of color (approx. $1.75)
• 1/4 yard of clear vinyl (approx. $2)
• sticky-back Velcro squares or circles (12-pack $2.50)
• skeins of embroidery thread, your choice of color (approx. 50 cents each)
• scrap pieces of felt (optional; 50 cents each)
• crafty glue (optional; $1 a bottle)
TOOLS
• embroidery needle
• scissors

Vegans could use an acrylic felt in this project.

TOTAL COST: about $10
SKILL LEVEL: Easy Peasy

phone cozy.tif
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Step 1: Measure the Dimensions

Get your flip phone and open it up. Using a pencil and some paper, trace the top and the bottom parts of the phone.

Depending on the thickness of your particular phone, add about 1/4 inch to the outline you just drew and then cut that out to make your pattern.

Step 2: Bottom Piece

On both pieces of felt, measure about 1/2-inch down from the top and mark both sides. Use your scissors and cut an arch from one mark to the other. This will leave you with two egg-shaped pattern pieces.

Now take the bottom pattern and use it to cut out a piece of felt and a piece of vinyl. With the piece of vinyl, you’ll cut off the top part of it. Lay it against the keypad of your phone, making sure to leave 1/4 inch hanging off the bottom, and depending on the size of your keypad, you’ll cut about 1/2 inch off the top.

Using the embroidery thread and needle, whipstitch the two pieces together close to the edge. Put your bottom piece aside.

Step 3: Top Piece

Using the top pattern, cut out a piece of vinyl. As with the bottom piece of vinyl, you’ll want to cut off the end that will lay closest to the hinge. For my phone, I again cut off about 1/2 inch.

Using the top pattern, cut out a piece of the felt. However, when you get to the top of the piece, add a long 2-inch rectangle measuring approximately 1 inch thick in the center. This will be used as the flap across the top of the phone.

For your top piece, you can be creative! You could either embroider the entire top piece with a design of your choice, or you can use tinier pieces of felt and glue together a design! I did a combination of both for this rocket ship.

Repeat step 5 on the top pieces of felt and vinyl.

Step 4: Velcro Baby!

Slide the top and bottom pieces onto the phone. Reach the flap on the top piece across the top of the phone, and extend it to the back piece. Where the two pieces overlap, stick down the pieces of Velcro to both pieces.