Our family is getting ready to embark on a Disney Vacation – and for the first time ever Disney is using MagicBands!
A MagicBand goes around your wrist and acts as your room key, your money, your meal pass and has your Fast Pass+ reservations on it. In short – your MagicBand is your everything! About 30 days before our trip we were able to customize our bands with a chosen color, but we thought it would be fun to be able to change the look of the band day by day.
You can buy CoverBands for your MagicBand at Disney World parks as well as resorts. But I wanted to try to save a little money, and make my own! They were dead easy to make!
Here is a step by step tutorial – along with the dimensions I used for both an adult band, and a child size MagicBand!
To Make your MagicBand Cover you will Need:
- A fabric of your choice. Good fabric choices include those with a little give, that breath. Remember you will be wearing it around your wrist so you wont want to pick something rough. I chose a 100% cotton blend camo fabric.
- You will need heat bond tape. You could certainly use the dimensions given here to sew your MagicBand Cover. But I find this no sew a cinch!
- You will need a measuring tape and scissors to cut your fabric to the correct dimension.
- If you are using heat bond, you will need a hot iron.
Directions:
Before beginning you will need to decide if you are making a cover for an adult band or a child sized one. A child sized band is an adult band, with the grey surrounding part taken off. Cut your fabric 3 inches x 10.5 inches for an adult band. If you are making cover for a child’s band – cut your fabric 2 and 7/8 of an inch x 9 inches. I was making multiple covers for our family, so I found it helpful to cut out a template to trace.
*UPDATE*
Someone recently asked if these will fit the Magic Bands 2.0 that will be starting to roll out. Disney says the new bands will be similar to the old, but the face will come out 1/4 of an inch more. To make this band 2.0 ready you can add 1/4 of an inch of width, to make it easier to slide over the new bands. Otherwise you can use the dimensions as they are – knowing you will have a tighter fabric to band ratio. Your choice!
1. Iron your Fabric so it lays flat.
2. With your fabric pretty side down -fold up one of the narrow sides of the fabric on about a quarter of an inch. Then cut your Heat bond tape to fit inside that fold. My tape was just about the perfect size when I cut it the correct length, and then cut it again in half vertically. Do the same with the other narrow side. Use your iron to seal the flaps down.
3. With the pretty side of your fabric still down, fold just one of the long sides of your fabric about a 1/4 of an inch as well. Cut more heat bod to fit on top of that strip.
4. Bring the other side of the fabric over to the folded side with the heat bond and seal it – it will make a tube!
5. Let cool, and slide on your MagicBand!
Are you a visual learner? Here is a video showing just what I did…
Happy MagicBand Making!
About Shannon SchmidShannon traded in her sensible NYC TV producer shoes (they were best for taking the subway), for a pair of Texas Cowboy boots when she married her best friend! He's at fault for making this Yankee a Texan! Shannon writes about all things that make a house a home. Her chief blogging inspiration is being the proud & slightly neurotic mom of a preschool age daughter.
You can find Shannon on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and her new favorite place to hang out, Google+.
Oh you did great! I didn’t even know you could buy cover bands, I bet they are a lot as well. Awesome for coming up with a great solution.
What a great little DIY project to do with my son!
This is such a fun idea and something I would have never thought to do!
This is a unique way to cover the bands! I will have to remember this the next time we go to Disney!
Great way to personalize them!
How clever! I wouldn’t have thought of doing this!
Neat. I bet these will make the bands more comfy on a hot day.
We went to Disney this past summer and used Magic Bands for the first time. What a great idea!
Great tutorial, thanks!
We love our new Magic Bands. What a fun way to dress them up.
What a great idea to make your own covers! I may give this a try for our Great Wolf Bands on Winter Break. The bands irritate me.
I’d much rather make my own than spend more money at Disney!
thanks for the detailed instructions and video. Thanks for linking up at Tell Me About It Tuesday. We hope you hop over and share with us again next week.
How fun is this. Love that you can do it with your son. Thanks tons for linking to Inspire Me. Hugs, Marty
I never thought of this last summer when we were at disney! But the magic bands were not very comfy and those little tubes looked comfy and stylish!
Love this idea!!
Thanks for linking up at Tell Me About It Tuesday. We hope you hop over and share with us again this week. (Sorry for the late comment!)
Hi, Shannon! Great Tutorial! One question…how do you get your MagicBand on and snapped with the cover in place? Would love to make these for my co-workers as we all head to WDW, but want to make sure I understand the whole process first. Thanks!
@Jen Jefferson, Hey Jen! So the cover is fabric that you can push up while you snap your band on the right fit for you. Then you just adjust the magic band cover all the way around. These work exactly like the ones they sell in the parks!
Yes, how do they snap and can they read the electronic part through the fabric??
@Laura, Laura- the cover is fabric that you can push up while you snap your band on the right fit for you. Then you just adjust the magic band cover all the way around. These work exactly like the ones they sell in the parks! And yes- the band works through the fabric fine. The hard middle section is the rfid reader(where the mickey head is) and you can place it on the magic band readers throughout the park with the cover on.