How to Make a Cardboard Case for your iPod Shuffle

Craft time! For iPod and iTunes Hacks, I wrote a hack about how to create a cardboard case for your iPod. This was easy. Apple provided a measurement guide for case developers (which has been updated since I wrote that article), but unfortunately, there are no such diagrams live yet for an iPod Shuffle case. On the other hand, the iPod Shuffle’s spec page provides us with the rough dimensions: 3.3 x 0.98 x 0.33 inches.

Why cardboard? Cardboard is cheap, strong, impact resistant, easily replaceable, bendable, and although it can be rigid, it still has some give. Perhaps most importantly, you can probably find a very suitable piece of cardboard for this project lying around your house or place of work. If you screw up, it won’t cost anything to start over.  After you’ve gone through these instructions with cardboard, you can try designing your own case out of other materials.

This time around, I’m going to try to design the case with tabs, so that it can be folded around the iPod Shuffle for easy removal. Try to find the thinnest grade of corrugated cardboard that you can. Since the dimensions are 3.3 x 0.98 x 0.33, we’re gong to need a piece of cardboard that is a bit longer than double the height of the iPod Shuffle, and twice as wide. 

So, materials needed: a good nine inch square piece of cardboard will do. You will also need a pencil for drawing the design for the case and a sharp knife. A cutting mat would be nice, but in a pinch just cut on top of more cardboard. Optionally, you could use some glue and rubber bands. And last, but not least, you will need an iPod Shuffle.

Now, that you have all the measurement numbers in your heads, crumple them up, and throw them out your ear. No need for math. Simply grab a pencil and let’s do some tracing. Lay your Shuffle at an angle to the corrugation of the cardboard (this will create a ribbed effect to strengthen the case). Trace around the iPod Shuffle. Now turn the iPod Shuffle on its side, add a hair of space above the iPod Shuffle trace you just finished, and measure the width of the iPod with a line. Add another hair of space, and now flip the iPod over and trace it again. Now you have the front, top and back of the iPod traced. Add another Shuffle width to both the top and bottom of the design for the double-flapped bottom. Now use the Shuffle on its side as a ruler to draw the side flaps on either side of the design. Each side flap should stretch the entire length of the design and be as wide as the Shuffle is thick.

I used the iPod for the guide for all of my drawing, and the Shuffle’s cap as a sort of mini-ruler for measuring where to place the tabs in my design and how thick to make them. Each side tab is the cap’s height from the top / bottom of the iPod Shuffle’s front and the same measurement in width. There should be four tabs protruding from the flaps surrounding the front of the Shuffle, and four corresponding slots flush with the sides of the back of the Shuffle. The tab for the bottom of the Shuffle (where we’ll insert and remove our Shuffle from, is the same width as the thickness of the Shuffle and centered between two more thicknesses (the Shuffle is roughly three times as wide as it is thick).

I then laid the iPod Shuffle down next to my design and marked where the hole for the headphone jack and the holes for the front and back controls needed to go. Here is the design:

Once you finish this tracing, you should have something that looks like the image below.

Now pull out a sharp knife and cut the design out from the rest of the cardboard. For all the lines of the design, score the cardboard for the seams where you will be bending the cardboard and eventually making some deep cuts. Cut out all the holes for where our tabs will fit, but leave all the other holes uncut. Since the cardboard is corrugated, we have three layers to play with. On the two side panels beside the front of the Shuffle case, remove the top layer of paper from the cardboard. Remove the top two layers from the two flaps in the middle of the design. Remove the top layer from the flaps on the side of the very top of the design (which is actually the bottom of the case). Cut off the two flaps from the bottom of the case with the tab (at the bottom of the design). For all the other tabs, squish the three layers together.  You should have something that looks like:

At this point, you will want to fold your piece around your iPod Shuffle to make sure it fits. Starting from the top of the Shuffle / the middle of the cardboard, wrap the cardboard around the iPod Shuffle, tucking in the flaps at the top and the bottom of the case. Flaps missing a layer or two of cardboard go under flaps that haven’t had any layers removed. If you followed my directions, then it’ll fit, but the tabs won’t reach. I discovered immediately after folding that I should have doubled—on second look, make that tripled—the length of all my tabs. Then it would work, but as is the design doesn’t quite reach. I’d redo everything right now, but I have a deadline to make. When you make yours, just make sure that you make all the tabs the full thickness of the iPod Shuffle.  That way they will reach and if any of them need to be trimmed you can go back and do so. As for me, it’s time to hack my original case design.

Go ahead and cut out the holes for the controls. For the circle on the front of the Shuffle, you’ll find it easiest to make cuts across the circle, as if you were cutting a pizza and then make cuts from each of these lines to the other to create the circle. You’ll want to flip over the cardboard to make sure you’ve cut all the way through before punching out the cut area. This’ll avoid unnecessary tearing. We didn’t cut these before, because we didn’t want to risk bending the case across one of these holes while shaping it to the iPod Shuffle.  Since it’s already been bent around the Shuffle, these weakened parts of the structure shouldn’t cause any problems.

Wrap the cardboard back around the iPod Shuffle, tucking in the flaps at the top and the bottom of the case. Since the tabs don’t quite reach on mine, time to grab some rubber bands! You can tuck your tabs in nicely and always use the rubber bands as added support. Wrap a few around the bottom and middle of the case to hold it in place. If you don’t like tabs and you don’t like rubber bands, then Elmer’s glue works very nicely with cardboard. Now you have your very own, very ugly, although functional and protective, Cardboard iPod Shuffle case. Want more peripherals? Grab a couple of more jumbo rubber bands, wrap them around your arm / forearm, and slide the iPod Shuffle underneath for your very own sports strap armband! I’ve done a shoddy job, so there’s plenty of room for improvement on the design.  Make your own iPod Shuffle case and have fun!