How to Make a Personalized Photo Mouse Pad

Photos are a great way to personalize household items and gifts, such as coffee mugs, tee shirts, and even mousepads. Although a mousepad may seem like a craft that is too complicated to make at home, it is actually pretty simple. The basic idea behind making a photo mousepad is to put a photo on a tee-shirt using iron-on transfers, then cover a rubber pad with that fabric photo. Personalized mouse pads make great gifts for family, friends, coworkers, or anyone who spends too much time behind the computer.

What You'll Need:
blank iron-on transfers for printers
color printer
cotton tee shirt
rubber cement
rubber pad material, about 1/4" thick

Load your printer's paper cartridge with an iron-on transfer sheet that is specially made to work with color printers. Then, select a favorite photo from your computer, and crop it so that its final dimensions will fit on a typical mousepad, about 8" by 10".

Print the photo onto the iron-on transfer. You may want to run a test page first if you haven't used the color cartridge in a while. You can also save money by using a black and white image to make the personalized mousepad.

Follow the package directions for applying the photo to the tee shirt. Since you are going to cut up the tee shirt to glue on the rubber pad, use an old junky shirt to make the photo transfer.

After you iron the personalized image onto the shirt, carefully cut out the rectangle with the photo. Next, cut the rubber padding to match the size of the fabric. Brush the top of the mousepad rubber with a thin layer of rubber cement and let it dry. On the back side of the fabric, apply a thin layer of rubber cement and let it dry. Then, put the fabric and the rubber together, smoothing it with your hands.

Use several heavy books to weight it down so that the surface becomes smooth and flat. And that's all it takes to create a personalized mouse pad. In addition to using photos, you can transfer other images. For back-to-school gift, you can make a mouse pad personalized with math formulas, or the periodic table.