I brought a cheap Kindle Fire for #JasperBean so that he can watch nursery rhymes etc rather than use mine or S’s phone. I’m not keen on him using any tablets or phones at such a young age, so we do limit his exposure to it. However, when we are travelling, there are exceptions. Instead of forking out for an expensive holder, I have made one for him from a few scraps I had left over from previous DIY projects. I understand that shop brought specialist holders will provide protection to the tablet if it was dropped, but I’m not too overly concerned about this. So I thought I’d share with you how I made our own Quick and Easy No Sew Kindle Holder for Kids.

Material:

• Felt fabric
• 2 Rings (optional)
• Ribbon
• Lolly stick
• Clear plastic sheet

Step 1: Measure and cut

Measure the amount of felt fabric you need. I used the following measurements and there is still wiggle room when the holder is finished.

Top rectangle – Front: 9 inch long, 5 1/2 inch wide. Front inner rectangle: 6 1/4 inch long, 3 1/2 inch wide (cut out)

Bottom rectangle – Back: 10 inch long, from this rectangle, cut a 2 1/2 inch strip from the end.

There are 3 extra smaller rectangle pieces, 2 are for attaching the rings to the main holder and one for the lolly stick stand.

Step 2: Glueing all the pieces together

Put the front rectangle on top of the back piece (small one first) and glue the top and bottom edge together. Then repeat for the bigger back piece.

Once you’ve glued the top and bottom edges, you should end up with something like this. You should be able to put your hands through on both ends.

The back will look like this. Although I have done it the other way round and stuck the larger back piece first and then the smaller one. I do recommend doing it the other way round as mentioned above. 

Now take the 2 smaller rectangle pieces and fold it around the rings. Glue to the middle of the side openings, making sure that you place the ring on the inside and glue all the way down.

Next, take your plastic sheet and cut to the size of the window and glue.

Once the glue has dried, you can turn the whole thing inside out and stick your kindle/tablet in to see if it fits.

For the stand, I used a lolly stick and cut it down to size (roughly 4 1/4 inches). Using the last piece of small felt fabric, I glued this to the top of the stick and holder to create a hinge. Then I took a piece of ribbon and glued this to one end of the stick and attached the other side to the holder as well. The length of the ribbon depends on what angle you would like the tablet to stand at.

Finished product:

Standing by itself with the lolly stick stand…

…Or using the rings to hold…

You can add whatever decorations you want to this as well. The overall cost of this was no more than £1 and most of that was for the 2 rings. You don’t have to use them and could easily substitute it with felt handles.

Lastly…

I made a few changes after the last photo was taken, they were:

• I added a few slits on the side for the headphone jack and charging port.
• As I used felt as the main material, I wanted to make sure there was minimal chance of overheating. Therefore I cut a few holes on the back for airflow.
• In the pictures above, I only covered the top part of the lolly stick, but ended up covering the whole thing so it looks more “finished”.
• Finally, I stuck some velcro on the opening at the back.

Would you make anything like this yourself? Or would you rather just buy one from the shops? Or have you made something like this before? What are your tips? I would love to hear about it.

Thanks for reading and until next time…

Love, MsMamaBean x