AOL recently made some huge cutbacks, including trimming back on the amount of people they employ and (gasp!) sending out less free CDs. This may mean an end to AOL CD DIY (phew - that’s a lot of acronyms!) projects like the CD chair and various art projects. We’ll all be a little sad to see the big guy go under, if it comes to that, but while we’re still graced by AOL’s presence, we can use their free coasters CD cases to our benefit.

Read on about fashioning a durable CD case from an AOL CD mailer and some duct tape.

The cases that AOL CDs come in are fantastic. Those little tins are great, but recently they’ve been sending out these little magnetic latch cardboard cases. With a little duct tape, you can make yourself an industrial looking case that will hold eight or nine CDs.

As you can see, the duct tape is simply wrapped around the CD case to cover it up - nothing too complicated here. Small pieces were then cut to cover up the top and bottom indented edges.

I slapped an IN-N-OUT sticker on the cover to remind me of my recent trip to CA for the Maker Faire, and voila! I keep the CD case in my bag and it has stood up to repeated beatings. Not bad for free.

In case you’re curious what I keep in my case, here’s my list:
Ultimate Admin CD (A version of Windows PE with plenty of recovery tools and the like)
Various Windows Install Disks (I seem to need to reinstall windows on my computer quite often)
Clean Install DIsk (My own mix of freeware software that I install on a fresh copy of XP)
Ultimate Boot CD (A CD with tons of boot disks built into it)
Ubuntu Live and Install CDs (Just in case I run into someone who is ready to hear the gospel of Linux)

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