How to Make a Folded-Paper CD Case

By DIY Maven

Instead of paying good cash for cd cases, which eventually break and end up in a landfill, how about creating your own, unique folded-paper cd cases that are biodegradable and take up a fraction of the space?

The Props:

8 ½" by 11" paper

a cd

a computer (optional)

labels (optional)

The Procedure:

1. Center a cd, which you’ll be using as a guide, at the top of a sheet of paper, as shown.

2. Fold in sides of paper to sides of cd.

3. Center cd at the middle of the folded paper.

4. Fold bottom up.

5. Fold the horizontal creases, which I’ve identified in red, to sides as indicated by arrows, so the creases are even with sides of original folded sides. (I’ve identified the creases in question with dashed lines for illustration.)

6. You'll have a box-shape sticking up toward you after making the folds in step 5. Just fold this flap down flat as shown below.

7. Tuck the "ears" that are sticking out to the sides in between the original side folds and the fold created in step 4.

8. Slip cd into front pocket and fold down top half of paper.

9. Dog-ear the top two corners of the top half of paper.

10. Slip top half of paper into pocket.

The original is pretty generic, but to give your cd holder some pizzazz as well as a personal touch, print labels and photos on the front center of paper.

Print the name of that book you wrote or are working on. Any paper, of course, will do including postal wrap, grocery bags or something of the decorative variety. A sheet of heavier-weight wrapping paper with a printed label makes a great way to store and share holiday pictures. Via athensmusician.net.

Tagged:
folded paper cd case Reduce

January 08, 2007

12 comments

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sopratutto

March 20, 2008

i used to do this back in the aol days. they actually do work well, but i'll stick with my new favorite cd cases.

bullhead

January 31, 2008

i did it, thanks, it is very useful,

SandraE

October 19, 2007

Awesome! cant wait to try it for my PhotoCDs! :)

sconover

April 18, 2007

OMG I LOVE THIS! I had to make like 7 CD's for my friend and i was going to use my old plastic cases that would have taken up a lot of space in his suit case so my other friend sent me this! Ah this works so well! and its so easy, it doesnt have a million steps and it looks cute! i'm so excited now! woot! thank you yo whoever posted this! Sarah

oschene

January 10, 2007

I think Tom Hull will probably be cool about it - he's very much into sharing. But the brave Ulysses has a point. Dropping the creator's name is never amiss.

And, if you enjoy needless complication, you can try on this CD case.

Bjorkfansoph

January 10, 2007

Of course many thing here on Curbly has orginated somewhere else, but I don't have the time to search all over the place for these things. So when someone post them here, it's great that someone is sharing what they have found. So some of these people need to stop the negativity!! :(

McFly

January 09, 2007

I've seen something similar to this before, but I like the curbly spin on it. I wonder who the first person was to pick up a piece of paper and fold it into an envelope? Can you say origami?

ulysses

January 09, 2007

C'mon. at least credit the ACTUAL creator of this idea, okay? curbly is a good site, but so much stuff here (and several other sites) is simply peopl ripping off others and calling it their own (or not crediting the known creators.)

disturbedphaeton

January 09, 2007

http://kahuna.merrimack.edu/~thull/CDcase/cd.gif

balubalu

January 08, 2007

I've been folding cases for my CDs like this for a while now.

I'm using a different approach in steps 3/4 though. To mark the center I simply fold the bottom to the top, but not grooving(?) the fold completely. I unfold and fold the bottom so it hits the mark.

After that I just keep going as you do.

To complete this here is a link to papercdcase.com where you can easily create a PDF to print a cd case with folding marks that results in the same case as above.

timbenzinger

January 08, 2007

Very cool. Fast and easy. Definitely a good thing to know if you can't find a case for that very important information you just backed up (I back my work up a lot and usually end up losing them in the mass of cd's without cases!).

benmoore

January 08, 2007

This is great!