The Best Freshers Week Gift: A Charm Phone Case DIY Kit for Your Uni Flat

Four completed Charmé Edit DIY charm phone case kits side by side, each with a different layout, ideal for a freshers week flat activity

A DIY charm phone case kit is a phone case, a set of pearls, shells and trinkets, and everything needed to stick them on, all in one box. For freshers week, it works as both a gift and an activity: you hand your new flatmates a box each, sit around a table for half an hour, and everyone leaves with a phone case nobody else in the building has. It costs less than a night out, needs no prior skill, and gives a room full of strangers something to do with their hands while they talk. That combination, low effort, genuinely personal, and finished the same evening, is why it works better for freshers week than a generic welcome gift bought off a shelf. It also travels well in a suitcase or the back of a car on move-in day, since everything needed is sealed inside one flat box until it's opened.

Why a DIY kit works for freshers week

The first week in halls is full of unstructured evenings between induction talks and nights out, and most people are looking for something to do that isn't just sitting in a kitchen making small talk. A charm kit gives the group a shared task with a result you can actually keep. Everyone works from the same box of charms, so the conversation naturally becomes about taste, what a flatmate picks says something about them, and it's an easy icebreaker compared to sitting in a circle answering questions. It also produces something practical rather than decorative only, since the case goes straight onto the phone everyone is already using to organise the week's plans. Unlike a lot of freshers week spending, it isn't gone by the following morning, so it keeps paying off every time the phone comes out of a bag.

What's actually in the box

Our curated DIY phone case kits start from £42 and include a case, a set of matching charms picked around one theme, the sealing gel and the tools to apply everything, so there's nothing extra to buy before you start. Themes range from soft, pearl-heavy designs to brighter, beach-inspired sets, so a flat of six can each choose a different one and still end up with cases that look coordinated rather than identical. If a flat wants to mix charms freely instead of following one theme, the build-your-own kit starts from £22 for the case and tools, with charms added separately from our add-on charms collection at £2 to £3 each. Either way, the case, charms and gel are handmade and shipped from London, with production taking 4 to 7 working days and UK delivery a further 2 to 3 working days once it leaves us.

Beyond phone cases: AirPods and phone straps for uni life

A phone case is the obvious starting point, but it isn't the only thing that goes missing in a shared kitchen. Our Afterglow custom AirPods case, from £28, gets the same hand-decorated treatment and is far easier to spot in a pile of identical white cases on a windowsill, which matters more than it sounds like in a flat where three people own the same earbuds. A phone strap, also from £28, is a smaller, faster add-on for anyone who wants to personalise something without committing to a full charm layout, and it clips onto a bag or wrist so the phone stops disappearing into the bottom of one. Both are handmade to the same 4 to 7 working day production schedule as the phone cases, so they can be ordered and gifted together.

Afterglow custom AirPods case from The Charmé Edit, hand-decorated with charms, shells and metallic details

How to plan a flat customising night

Order a week to ten days before move-in day to give production and UK delivery time to land before term starts, since kits are handmade to order rather than kept pre-built on a shelf. Pick one evening in the first week, lay everything out on the kitchen table, and give each person their own kit or their own small budget from the charms collection so nobody is waiting their turn. Placing and sealing usually takes 20 to 30 minutes per case, and it's dry enough to handle and use again the same night. If anyone is ordering to a different UK address after the holidays or from outside the UK, international orders to the US, Canada and Australia typically take 6 to 8 working days, with customs duty already covered so there's nothing extra to pay at the door.

FAQ

Do I need any skill to use a DIY kit?
No. Each kit comes with instructions, and the charms simply press into the gel before it seals, so there's no cutting, gluing tools or prior experience needed.

Can a whole flat order kits together?
Yes, and it's one of the most common ways they're bought. Ordering everyone's kit at the same time also means they arrive together rather than spread across the week.

What if we want different phone models in the same flat?
Every kit can be set to a specific phone model at checkout, so a flat with a mix of iPhone and Android phones can still all order from the same kit design.