I’ve been addicted to Instagram for a while now.  It’s the fun little app that lets you color correct your photos in all kind of vintage looks and share them with your Instagram friends. Yes, it’s another social network.  I call it the new Flickr, since everyone is sharing photos on it left and right and it’s full of hype right now! Instagram is only available for iPhone and Android users and is not a site/progam you can access online.  Since I’ve got a hankering for it these days and keep up two accounts (@swelldesigner and @ilovetocreate), I thought I’d create a little mosaic of some of my favorite recent photos I’ve processed using it.  This is super simple to do and you can get your own custom photo background in less than an hour!

All you need to make your own Instagram iPhone background is a clear case (you can buy them on Ebay for a couple bucks each), Photoshop or software editing program, a personal printer, and paper! Here’s how I made mine. These are very loose instructions as I often do projects of this nature on the fly!

1. Trace your purchased clear case and openings on paper and scan it in or download this template if you are using a case for the 4G phone. This is the template I used and it is 300dpi for better photo resolution.

2. Open up your template. If you’ve made your own template you will want to use the magic wand to clear everything but the traced outline.

3. Collect your instagram photos from your phone. Open them in Photoshop and copy and paste them into your document, leaving your template layer as a guideline at the bottom. Each photo will have it’s own layer. You can name them if you want to. Select all the layers with photos to proportionally size them at the same time. I chose to make mine 4 across and 8 down, but you can make your photos larger or smaller if you wish.

4. I laid out basic guidelines (I eyeballed them, but you might want to be more precise) and arranged my pictures inside.All my Instagram photos have different border widths and shapes, so I wasn’t too worried it they didn’t line up perfectly.

5. Once you have your pictures laid out to your liking, copy the bottom template and paste it in a new layer at top. This will be a guideline for cutting your design out once printed. Go back to your bottom layer and fill in your template with a black background. I found that this helped unify the photos, but you can leave it white if you wish.

6. Print out your background. Use scissors or an X-acto to cut out your design. Insert into your clear iPhone case and you have a cool new case to show off that is uniquely all your own!

Do you have the Instagram fever yet? I can only imagine it growing even more in popularity since Facebook just bought it for 1 BILLION dollars! Do you think you might just make your own mosaic background for your phone?

Until next time Swellions!

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