{Nearly Free!} DIY iPhone Speaker

Well hello there! Good morning! I hope you all had lovely weekends. We (finally!) had some nice down time this weekend to relax and recharge after several busy busy weeks. I tackled organizing the front hall closet and can't wait to share it with you this week, but first, I have a sort of silly, but oh-so-useful DIY to tell you about this morning. It's an iPhone speaker - made out of a few everyday supplies I'll bet you have laying around your house. And don't worry, it doesn't involve any fancy electrical work, wires or even a power source at all. So enough with the intro already, huh? Let's get down to how I put this guy together!

Supplies:

• Empty toilet paper roll
• 2 push pins
• X-acto knife/scissors
• Pretty paper (optional)
• Tape (only necessary if you use the pretty paper)
• 
  

Below are the required supplies...I'll get to the pretty paper part in a bit :).

Step 1: Hold the empty toilet paper roll up to the base of your iPhone and mark the width and depth of it at the center of the toilet paper roll (basically, trace around the base of the iPhone to mark a rectangle - make your marks slightly wider than than the phone itself). The eyeball method works for finding the center, or you can be more exact than me and measure it out.

Step 2: Use your X-acto knife to cut out the rectangle you just marked. Note: hold onto the rectangle after you cut it out - you'll need it later.

Step 3: Place your pushpins on the backside - these are the support mechanism that keep the speaker upright and balanced once you place your phone in it. You can use trial and error to figure out the best placement or, if you find this visual to be helpful, think of the toilet paper roll as a clock with the rectangle cutout being 12 o'clock. Put your pushpins in at about 4 o'clock.

At this point, you're technically done! That's it, folks. You've got yourself a real classy iPhone speaker.

But maybe you, like me, aren't really digging the whole naked toilet paper roll thing. I mean, the brown is soo nice, but do you think it might be nice to make it look just a little prettier? I did, so I grabbed a leftover piece of pretty blue and white scrapbook paper to wrap around the toilet paper roll.

Step 4: Wrap your pretty paper around the toilet paper roll and trim to fit. Leave about a half-inch of excess on either side to mask the edge of the toilet paper roll.

Step 5: Take the little rectangle you cut out earlier (you did hold onto it, didn't you? ;) ) and mark the corners onto the middle backside of your pretty paper. By using it as a template, the hole in your paper will be the same size as the hole in your toilet paper roll.

Step 6: {Refer to the photo below for help! This step's a little hard to describe in words.} Use your X-acto knife to cut a "v-shape" at either end with the points toward the middle of the paper. Connect the points of the v with a line down the middle. By cutting the paper this way, you can easily fold and secure the opening in the paper to the toilet paper roll.

Step 7: Line up the area you just cut on your paper with the opening on the toilet paper roll. Fold the edges of the paper into the toilet paper roll. Secure on the inside with a small piece of tape. Pull the pushpins out of the backside, then wrap the paper around the toilet paper roll and secure with tape. Replace the pushpins in their original holes.

Step 8: Cut a few slits into the excess paper around the edges of your toilet paper roll and tuck those into the inside. Smooth the paper around on the inside and secure interior edges with tape. This won't be perfect, but you really won't notice.

Now you're actually done! Put your iPhone in the slot, crank up some tunes and enjoy your (nearly free) speaker!

As for you skeptics out there, yes, this speaker does actually work :). I know, I was surprised too. No, it's not going to be incredibly loud, but I was impressed at how much it improves the quality and volume of the sound compared to the regular phone speaker. Don't knock it 'til you try it!

Anyone else out there made or used a speaker like this? 

Hope y'all have a wonderful start to the week! I'll be back tomorrow with some updates on the front hall closet organization project :).

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