PET Soda Bottle to Phone Cradle

When I served in the IDF I had soft drinks problem. It started years ago and just recently I managed to quit. But through the years other related problems arose regarding the habit, one of them we haven't solved yet, and I found the solution given to me wasn't any good. I'm talking about the plastic bottles problem of course. I didn't really dig recycling, so naturally, I took my empty bottles and turned them to phone cradles.

The idea is simple – you cut a flap, you press a ditch, and tuck it into a pre-cut slit in the back. The entire thing can be done with a pocket knife alone, but what you need, essentially:
1.5L PET Bottle - I suppose it can work with some bigger and smaller bottles, but here you can mostly find 1.5L.
A sharp cutting tool of any sort
Needle-nose Pliers

BUT - I suggest having few empty bottles for use in case you want to change something in the design.

Also, I use just leatherman to make the cradle

We start with a selection of bottles - I found mostly round coke bottles, but as it turns out, the one rectangular bottle worked best - so try and find similar one.

I marked where I'm going to cut on the coke bottle, which will be to the outside of the electrical tape, from top to bottom.

I also marked where I want to make the slit, which is above the tape at the back.

This is how the cut bottle looks like before going ahead with tucking everything into place.

I made little flaps to be folded so the main flap can be inserted to the back of the bottle and secured by opening the flaps. I folded and taped them.

But it's not time to insert it to the slit yet – first I need to create a trench the will hold the bottom of the phone. I'm doing this by bending to flap toward the outside of the bottle, and while holding it folded, 1cm from the base of the flap, I press it tightly with my leatherman.

After, another press toward me, 0.5cm above the first press, finally, to set the trench at the bottom of cradle, you bend it inside the bottle and press, as illustrated.

After which you can tuck the folded flap to the slit, unwrap the tape, unfold the flaps and secure the main flap at its place, thus finalizing the upcycling of the bottle to a phone cradle!

After all the cutting and the folding I had the near final product in my
hands and I didn't really like it. So I tried another round bottle, this time cutting the top of the flap at the bottom of the bottle, so the nozzle is at the bottom, this resulted in a slightly better cradle, and both of them went through some trimming of the inner flap, so it will hold in its place better.

The 2 bottles I had were most like the original design from my days in the IDF, But then I tried the rectangular bottle, cutting it along it's natural angles, and it turned out to be the best bottle for the task!

The final touch was cutting a hole where the charger plugs the phone, and nailing the cradle to a cabinet next to my bed.