Homemade iPad stand combines pencils and rubberbands

If you’ve spent all your disposable income on an iPad and have found yourself without the funds to purchase a stand, there’s no need to fret—with a little DIY magic, you can make your own functional, cool, and inexpensive iPad stand with just a handful of pencils and rubber bands.

Julian Horsey of Geeky Gadgets is the mind behind the pencil iPad stand. His crafty design, an expansion on a pencil iPhone stand he designed last year, uses six pencils and four elastic bands that form a triangular base for the iPad to rest on. A single pencil, reinforced by four other pencils, props the iPad upright.

The pencils’ erasers provide protection and friction for the iPad and grip for the stand’s legs, while the metal parts of the pencils that connect the erasers serve as locators for the edge of the iPad. According to Horsey, these metal locators “work like a dream, providing just enough friction to keep the iPad in either landscape or portrait orientation.” He cautions that the metal could scratch your iPad’s edges if it’s not in a case, though he offers work-arounds for that dilemma as well.

You’ll find photos of the stand at Geeky Gadgets, and while assembly instructions aren’t provided, the stand should be easy enough to make on your own with a few reference photos.