DIY Rainbow Phone Case Designs

For a couple of years, I had wanted to create a DIY phone case because I had found lots of lovely designs and this Instructables rainbow contest gave me the idea that I could use marbling inks to create rainbow patterns for clear phone cases.

1x apron

1x tray bigger than the paper size you are using, eg a baking tray

1x box of standard colour marbling inks

1x jug

1x pencil

1x small scissors

1 or more clear phone cases

Several pieces of A4 pieces of paper

Several bits of absorbent kitchen paper

Several pieces of newspaper (to protect the work surface)

Several implements (for example, fork, comb, skewer) to move the inks around

(I did not have gloves on to do my designs as although the inks are oil based, they wash off your hands in warm, soapy water)

Find your supplies and arrange them conveniently on a work table on the spread out newspaper.

There are two ways to continue. You can either cut out paper shapes to fit your phone before marbling, or marble A4 pieces of paper and cut out phone shapes when they're dry. To get the right phone shape and size, simply draw carefully around your phone. Then, cut them out. How many bits you marble depends on how much choice you would like - as some will appeal to you more than others.

Fill a tray with water to about 2cm (3/4s inches) deep. I used a jug.

You can choose similar kinds of colour for example, blues and greens or yellows and reds or as many colours as you have to create a rainbow effect.

You may need between 3 and 6 drops of several colours depending on the size of the tray.The inks stay on the surface because they are oil based.

Swirl the drops a little to mix the colours. If you leave blobs, this ink will be thicker on the paper and so will take longer to dry. Some colours are more likely to want to spread thinly and some may be more difficult to break up.

The inks may not look particularly marbled at this stage.

Place your piece of paper onto the water and count to about 20 seconds to make sure the colour gets strong enough. To place it onto the water, bend it slightly into a "U" shape and then lower it gently down.

To take the piece of paper out, lift it carefully from two ends and let it drip off a bit. Make sure there is some newspaper down ready to put the wet pieces on.

I washed my hands every second piece of paper to stop smudges from my fingers from getting on the next piece.

If the ink is thin, it may dry in a few hours. But if there are thicker parts, drying can take a few days. If you want to quicken the drying of the thicker bits, press kitchen roll down on it to absorb some of the ink.

Hopefully you will like lots of your pieces of rainbow marbling. When you have chosen one, put it into the empty clear phone case. Align it correctly and put the camera and microphone end over a supporting surface that you can press on (I used a jam jar with a flat lid), then mark on it with a pencil where the camera and the microphone apertures are by drawing the outlines of their shapes. Before drawing the outlines, it may help to steady the paper temporarily in the phone case by using two small pieces of tape folded over and placed between the paper and the case.

Take the paper out of the phone case and use small scissors to carefully cut out the holes for the camera and microphone. But before doing this, put some tape over the back of the hole shapes so that they will be reinforced and will not tear. To make the microphone hole, use a single hole punch if you have one or skewer and trim it neatly from the back.

Now you are ready to put your marbled piece into the case and then add your phone. TA-DAAA!
Now you can make one rainbow for winter, one for summer, or one for a friend!