It’s been over a month since Christmas & Hanukkah, but I finally finished my present for Max! It was going to be perfect… he just got a new MacBook Pro last December so I wanted to buy him a laptop case to go with it, but none of the ones I saw really screamed his name and most were a little too expensive. So, I decided to make my own. It was going to be right on time for the holidays too, but life happened in all of its craziness and it sat lonely and half finished on a shelf waiting for me for a little too long. Nonetheless, here it is today in all of its fully finished glory…

For the actual laptop sleeve, I just ordered a light-colored laptop case off of Amazon like this one for 15″ laptops or this one for 13″ laptops (the one I used doesn’t seem to be available anymore) and then picked up a couple of super inexpensive soft fabric paints from the craft store. I decided on a triangle pattern in some of Max’s favorite colors and marked my design in pencil directly onto the bag before I started painting. I wrote “R” for Red, “G” for Green, or “Y” for Yellow in the spaces that I wanted to paint those colors so I could be armed with a plan beforehand.

Here are a few tips for working with fabric paint (that didn’t occur to me until now):

• It’s smart to hand wash the laptop sleeve and let it dry before you do anything because it helps the paint stick to the fabric easier. (I didn’t actually do this, but rule #2 on Michael’s “FAQ’s about Fabric Printing” claims that it’s essential.)
• If there are parts that you know that you want to keep unpainted, like the straps or zipper, either remove them if you can or cover them up with tape. I was naive enough to think I could just avoid those areas and it didn’t quite work out the way I had hoped.
• Don’t mix the paint with water like you would when painting with regular acrylic paints on canvas or something. It creates uneven shading because the paint has to absorb into the fabric and you’ll just end up having to go over it again (trust me).
• If, when the paint dries, it feels all hard, you can hand wash it after the paint has cured (usually 72 hours to be on the safe side) and it should come out feeling a bit softer.

Voila! Now you have a completely custom made, one-of-a-kind laptop sleeve to protect your baby from life’s little accidents. You’ll be the talk of the coffee shop, I just know it!