CD Organizer

In the age of MP3 players, smartphones and tiny little laptops, CDs might start feeling a little 90’s. However, the one place I’ve found CDs aren’t obsolete is cars. I’m sure plenty of brand new fancy cars have iPod plugins, but mine is just a plain old CD player. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about my CD player, primarily since my last car just had a tape deck and this seems like a vast technological improvement. So the last vestige of CDs and burned mixes live in my car. Aaallll over the place...

No more CDs stuffed in the glove box or down the sides of chairs. It’s time to treat our CDs right, and give them a place to live in our car where they’re neat and organized.

Let’s start with our embroidery. I’m going to embroider the very top pocket, the one you’ll see the most of. This will be at the left edge of your CD holder.

Choose a rockin’ design that’s a small size, around 4" x 4" or so. Hoop up with stabilizer whatever fabric you’d like your top pocket to have. Make sure the fabric is as tall as your template and at least 6 inches wide.

I embroidered my little hedgehog, groovin’ away to his music. I changed up his colors to match all my crazy fabric swatches.

Let’s cut out the CD case template before we get any further, since we’ll be using it to measure everything else. Lightly spray the back of your printed template with adhesive and lay it on top of a piece of tag board. Cut out your template shape.

Use the template again to cut out another tag board shape, but set the second one aside. We just need one for now.

So, a good length for a CD pocket is about 4 1/4 inches. This is deep enough to keep the CD in place but still leaves an edge peeking out so you can find which CD you want.

With that in mind, fold and pin the right edge of your embroidered fabric under, and then measure 4 1/4 inches back. This is how big your pocket will be. You can see me testing out the size on my template.

Once you like your pocket size and embroidery placement, sew a 1/8 inch seam down the folded right side of your fabric, like shown.

Now we have one main edge figured out, let’s tackle the other. We just need to cover the right edge so it’s not just tag board.

Cut a piece of fabric about 4 inches wide, and fold and pin the edges in and under. We’ll sew a seam around all the edges later, but for now we just need to secure it in place. Sew two small seams on the top and bottom to keep it in place while we’re making the rest of the pockets.

Now it’s time to make the rest of the pockets! We’re basically going to repeat the same process over and over until our pockets are done.

Take a swatch that's at least 5 inches wide and about 7 inches tall. Fold and press the right edge in about 1/4 inch, and sew a small seam down the side.

Lay your pocket an inch or so away from the edge (leaving enough of a gap for the edge of a CD to poke out). Pin it in place.

Mark 4 1/4 inches away from your seam like shown. Sew a seam down that line, securing your pocket in place.

Repeat your process again. Grab another swatch, fold and press the edge and sew a seam. Measure 4 1/4 inches away and sew your seam in place again.

It may help to fold and sew the edge seam of all your pieces first, and then lay them down on your template to measure out the spacing.

Continue along until all your pockets are sewn in place, like shown.

Now we need to fold in the rough edges. Since we have so many layers, pinning it in place is kinda tricky. Masking tape to the rescue!

Fold in the edges behind your cardstock, and tape them in place. Keep them pulled tight so it looks nice and neat from the other side.

Now, because we don’t really want to be able to see all that “pretty” tape, let's make a back piece.

Take your second piece of cardstock and spray the back of it with some adhesive. Take your larger piece of fabric, and cut it just a little bit larger than your template. Place your template on top of the fabric and smooth it in place.

Fold your edges in, using a little spray adhesive to hold it in place. For the corners, pull the edges in and tape them in place.

Now we’ll put the two pieces together. Grab your elastic (again, I would recommend a thicker piece of elastic than I have here... trust me) and cut it so it’s just a little bit longer than the template. Tape the edges of the elastic in between the two layers, so that it’s on the outside of the back piece.

Place the two pieces wrong sides together, and once again, since it’s a bit too thick to pin, tape the two layers in place.

Finally, we can stitch the two layers together. Place your holder under your sewing machine and sew a 1/4 inch seam all the way around it.

Your finished holder! Right now it’s a cute little buncha pockets with a groovy little hedgehog...

...but add a few CDs and your holder comes to life. You can use it just like this, to organize your CDs in a groovy fashion...

Or for its full effect, use the elastic to attach it to your car visor! Your CDs will be easily visible and always in reach. Plus it adds a dash of much needed color to my black and gray interior.

You'll love your little CD organizer as much as your little hedgehog loves his music. And he really loves his music.