Saturday, January 22, 2011

Custom desk/office supplies - Extremely easy and cheap gift idea

Have you seen on other blogs where people covering mouse pads with fabric to create a custom look? It is a great idea for gifts for teachers and in my case my mother. I decided to take the covered mouse pad one step further and created an entire office set, including mouse pad, pen holder, clips and large magnet board. I covered each of these with a fabric (from Ikea) that matched her office.  I purchased the frame at a thrift store for $3, the fabric at Ikea for next to nothing and all the other items at the Dollar store. Grand total for the entire gift set was probably $10!!! Sorry, I don't have a photo off all of these together but here are the office items I created for my trial run. 

I won't give you step by step photo instructions because it is super easy...plus I didn't take pictures while I was making them :).


Pen/Pencil holder
If you are using a light fabric and dark holder, you can do a quick coat of white spray paint to prevent the dark from showing through.

I placed the holder on the fabric and lightly traced with pencil the shape of the holder. I rolled the holder along the fabric to get the shape of the entire thing. I then cut the fabric approximately 1/2 an inch bigger then the pencil line. Be sure the seam or overlap of fabric is to the BACK of the holder.

Paint the entire outside of the holder with ModgePodge and stick the fabric to it. Use more ModgePodge to seal the seam/overlap.  I then painted approximately 1/2 into the holder and folded the fabric over. Do the same for the bottom. Once everything is 'stuck down', put a layer of ModgePodge over the entire thing.  

If you like, cover the bottom seams with a piece of felt. 
Mouse Pad

If necessary you can give this a coat of spray paint.

Roughly trace the shape of the mouse pad onto the fabric and give yourself an extra 1 inch to fold over.

Paint ModgePodge over the entire top of the mouse pad. Push down to remove all the bubbles in the fabric to make it smooth. Flip over and paint the back edge with ModgePodge and stick down.

I found it best not to give the top of the mouse pad a layer of ModgePodge. It got too slick and my mouse didn't work properly. Also, I don't recommend putting felt on the bottom of this because the mouse pad doesn't stick well enough to the surface. 
Paper clips
Using scrap fabric, cut small strips the size of the flat part of the metal. Put a layer of ModgePodge on the clip and stick on the fabric. Can't be easier!

I will try to get a picture of everything soon.

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