These days I’m surrounded by tech. I don’t go anywhere without my iPhone, I also have an iPad Mini and use a MacBook Air at home. My husband has the same items so we’re always looking for ways to identify them so we know who owns what.
This week a new book was published – Dress Your Tech: 35 projects to customise your phone, laptop, tablet, camera, and more by Lucy Hopping. Shop-bought covers and accessories can be expensive and dull so this book is perfect if you would like to customise them yourself for a fraction of the price.
It’s been a long time since I last cross stitched an iPhone case but I have and this is just one of the ideas in the book. The other night I jazzed up my lightning cable as my husband is always stealing it. It was a fun little project I found in Dress Your Tech and a great way to use up my children’s hama bead collection!
DIY hama bead personalised cable
I used a Swann Morton scalpel to slice through the long side of some hama beads. Then I opened them up using my finger nails and quickly placed the lightning cable inside. This was actually quite tricky but gets easier the more you do it! The hama beads fit really snugly around the cable so it’s easy to make a pattern with them. I opted to place two random coloured beads in a pattern but you could use any colour combination you wanted.
Dress Your Tech is divided into three chapters – Decorate Your Tech, Keep Your Tech and Protect Your Tech.
In chapter 1, discover how to personalise your tech: use washi tape for colourful phone cases and keyboards, and add beads or braids to your headphone leads.
Chapter 2 is about giving your tech a home. Make the gorgeous vintage book laptop case or a simple holder for your phone while it’s charging, as well as an armband pouch to hold a phone or music player while you’re out running.
Chapter 3 offers a variety of cases to keep your tech safe from damage but looking good. The phone covers include a fabric lolly, contemporary cross stitch and laser cut designs, while you can make more tablet covers from felt or an old hardback book.
The projects in this book use a range of easy craft techniques. Each project has clear step-by-step artworks and there’s a section that explains all the techniques you’ll need, so you don’t have to be an expert to start making your tech world more beautiful.
Dress Your Tech by Lucy Hopping is published by CICO Books at £12.99, and is available from all good bookshops or call 01256-302699.
3 Comments
Georgia
August 20, 2015 at 7:49 pmLove the hama beads on the cable, that is such a good idea. We share a cable for our iPhones as I always manage to break mine. Also love the idea of making your own covers and cases!
jenny
August 20, 2015 at 9:46 pmI also break mine! Hoping the beads will make it stand out and be more obvious around the house.
Amy
August 20, 2015 at 10:49 pmI think just giving yourself something to read is a great hobby but to include a craft too, that’s got to keep your mind active! (Fitness blogger) I’m bound to mention activeness, I hope you’re well Jen! 🙂 xx