No-Sew DIY iPad / Kindle / Nook / Whatever Clutch

It's time for another installment of "Not The Craftiest of Crafters Attempts to Craft" . . . . starring yours truly! :-) It's been awhile . . . so I thought it might be safe to ATTEMPT another craft that I've had my eye on. The funny thing about this particular project is that I chose it because it looked SO easy and quick and straight-forward. All GOOD THINGS in my crafting world.

But due to circumstances beyond my control (like Walmart's ugly choices of duct tape colors!) I had to actually do some fairly complicated crafting things (complicated for ME at least) to finally make this work out. But you know what? It DID work out! Better than I ever could have imagined. This was actually a real boost to my crafting ego. I might have to change the name of my crafting efforts to "Not The Craftiest of Crafters . . . BUT NOT THE WORST . . . Attempts To Craft". :-)


So, let's get crafting shall we?

This was my inspiration. A super simple iPad clutch/case from P.S. I Made This, made out of shelf/drawer liner and duct tape! How crazy cool is that???

I was ALL OVER this idea because I JUST got an iPad and the boring black case that came with it was, well, boring. I was completely up-to-date with shelf/drawer liner products, having recently used a LOT of it in my pantry and pots and pans cupboard makeovers.

And how hard could it be to find some cute duct tape???

HA! EXTREMELY hard in my case! I searched and searched my small town over and could only come up with these 4 colors (if you can call gray and black COLORS!) I couldn't even find any red!





It was quite frustrating because I had seen all KINDS of great colors online. ugh. Guess I should have just waited and ordered some. Or, maybe not.

Because if I hadn't been FORCED to "think outside the box" at this point . . . I would definitely not have come up with THIS!

Isn't it cute??? :-)

It ended up being a little more work than the duct tape version . . . but I am so happy with how it turned out . . . I don't even care. :-)

So, since this is the first craft type TUTORIAL I've ever attempted . . . I'm sure it will leave a lot to be desired. But I hope you can hang in there. I promise I'll get better!

I still used shelf/drawer liner as the "base" of the clutch...but decided to try FABRIC instead of duct tape as the decorative element. I just happened to find a do-it-yourself pillowcase kit on CLEARANCE at Walmart in their fabric section for $4.00! It came with 3 pieces of coordinating fabric, which I proceeded to cut into shapes and sizes that would fit the piece of shelf liner I had cut out to cover the iPad (I wrapped the liner around the iPad and saw how much it would take to cover, then added about 6 inches for the flap).

I then fused the fabric onto the shelf liner using a nifty product called Heat n Bond. This gave both the fabric and the liner some stiffness and sturdiness, necessary to protect "my precious".

It's a two-step process. First you iron the Heat n Bond paper onto the "wrong" side of the fabric.

Second, you peel the paper backing off and iron that side directly onto the shelf liner, 

FUSING them together!

Here are all three pieces of fabric after they have been fused to the one piece of shelf liner.

Now that the "body" of the clutch is done...it's just a matter of finishing off the edges. 

This took a bit more figurin' on my part...but I finally came up with a solution that, much to my surprise, actually worked....quite well!

I used another Heat n Bond product...this time the "tape" form. Using the same technique as above (ironing on, peeling off paper backing, ironing again to fuse together) I made a flap on each end. Then I added a piece of velcro as a closure.

Then to bind the edges and seal them, I used some extra wide bias tape 

in a coordinating color and more Heat n Bond tape.

I fused bias tape to both long sides, then folded the long piece up to form the clutch, and "sealed" the sides with more Heat n Bond tape.  

(And I realize my photos fall short of thoroughly tutoring this step....

so if you have questions...please ask away!)

And here it is....my first ever almost original piece of craftiness tutorial!

I hope you enjoyed! 

(Because I might not be up to attempting another one for awhile!) :-)

Getting CRAFTY is today's.....