Designing Your Own Custom Mouse Pad

We've been looking for ideas to add a bit of personality to our 99 cents IKEA white mouse pad (also ideas of how to fix the edges that are lifting up between the surface cover and rubber pad from regular use). We stumbled upon this great DIY step by step instructions over at Design*Sponge that looks easy and affordable enough for anyone to follow (at least anyone who still use a mousepad, dying breed).

It's all pretty simple, only requiring a blank mouse pad, some label sheet paper (very smart, since this creates an easy to use adhesive stencil much like airbrush artist use), a X-acto blade, a cutting board, acrylic paint, a stencil brush, an iron and wax paper to set your design once you've painted.

The full step by step instructions at Design*Sponge will help you guide your way through the process.

Comments (5)

Do people still use mousepads? I thought most people either had trackpads/balls or an optical mouse. If you don't have any of those, and still have the old kind of mouse, a mousepad actually causes more dust to get into your mouse. It's better to not use a mousepad at all.

But this is cute!

Yep I see your point tgray99, but there are some surfaces that optical mice 'hate' and the only solution is to use a mousepad.

Yeah, I sadly have that problem with my optical mice; glass desk at work and super-shiny Besta Burs desk at home - optical mice don't like either!

I still use a mousepad with an optical mouse on a wood desk.

I find that a mousepad quiets the sound of the mouse banging against the desk.

you can always count on a post about mousepads and then someone asking if people still use them.

yup we're still out here. Glass desk at work and my laser mouse still doesn't like it. Wood desk at home I made and I would prefer not to slowly rub the finish of of the desktop.

Even if it did work on my desk at either location, I have an icemat, that makes for very smooth mousing. Just the resistance of the mouse on the bare glass is terrible.