How to make a cover for your Amazon Kindle for under R50

Posted by Alison Westwood on 15 August 2010

Recently I bought myself an Amazon Kindle from wantitall. As a frequent traveller, I was getting tired of lugging books around in my baggage and rationing my reading on long flights to avoid running out of book.

After spending a couple of grand on the hardware, I had no appetite for spending money on content or accessories. Project Gutenburg, with about 30,000 free books available online, took care of the content. But a Kindle needs a cover. So, like Baldric, I had a cunning plan. I would *make* one.

What you need:

  • An A5 hardcover exercise book (about R10 from CNA)
  • A small tube of fabric glue (about R20 from Pick ‘n Pay)
  • Two pieces of fabric, one patterned, one plain, about 30cm x 1m (buy them as offcuts and they shouldn’t cost more than R10 each)
  • A short piece of ribbon
  • A button
  • A needle and thread

What to do:

  1. Remove all the pages from the exercise book. Take care not to damage the spine as you rip them out – do it section by section.
  2. Divide your plain piece of fabric into two – one piece just a bit larger than your Amazon Kindle, another piece large enough to wrap the whole way around the exercise book, inside and out.
  3. Wrap the exercise book in your large plain piece of fabric as though it’s a present. Position the long, vertical seam on the outside. Fold the fabric over top and bottom to the outside. Glue the long seam down first. Then glue the tops and bottoms down neatly, following the instructions on the glue packet.
  4. Now take the patterned piece of fabric and use it as though you’re covering a school book. (Remember doing that?)
  5. Glue sides and tops and bottoms neatly down on the inside. Fold the edges of the fabric over before you glue them so that they look neat and don’t fray.
  6. Take the smaller piece of plain fabric and position it on the right hand inner side of the book so that it makes a pocket. Fold the fabric under at the bottom and on the sides and glue it down.
  7. Leave the Kindle cover under some big, heavy books to dry for about an hour.
  8. Sew the button onto the front cover. Use a little drop of fabric glue to make it hold strongly.
  9. Make a loop with your ribbon, then glue and sew it onto the back cover so that you can bring it around to the front and fasten it around the button securely.
  10. Put the Kindle into the pocket, close the cover and fasten the ribbon. Tadah!

Bonus of this cover: it looks like nothing fancy and no airline attendant will ever suspect you of using ‘electronic equipment’ on take-off or landing. As long as you turn the Amazon Kindle Whispernet off, there’s no way it will crash the plane.

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