DIY Life

Using a old computer keyboard you can make a thin sleeve to protect your CD or DVD from damage. Inside computer keyboards is a thin, flexible, and sturdy membrane with printed circuits on it. Older keyboards tend to have prettier colors and designs in my experience. If you have upgraded to a USB keyboard or one with a bunch of fancy function keys and can not find a taker for your old keyboard grab a small screwdriver and see what's inside.

Making a few sleeves like this could be combined to make a CD wallet. Adding a "jacket" made from an old 5¼ inch floppy diskette gives the newer disc even more protection and also makes your CD protection quite similar to the old familiar albums.

You will need just a few items to make at least one of the sleeves. Depending on the keyboard you may have enough circuit sheets for up to three compact discs.

• Keyboard
• Screwdriver
• Utility knife or hobby knife
• Cutting board
• A square
• Clear packing tape
• 5 ¼ floppy disk (optional)

Open up the keyboard and remove the circuit sheets. You might want to clean them with hot water and a sponge. Cut two 5 inch squares out of the circuit sheet and put the smooth sides together. Now cut three pieces of tape to seal three of the sides. I used the edge that I did not cut for my opening so there are not any rough edges and there is a line of circuits that help distinguish the opening. The circuit sheets are very forgiving so you can remove the tape and fix things if you need to. Trim off any pieces that overhang. If you can find an old floppy for the outer sleeve then just trim off one edge (I cut the edge with the notches in it) and pull out the inner disk. The gallery images give a detailed walk through.