How to Decorate a Laptop

If you want your laptop to have a look that no one else has, then the decision comes to when you decide to decorate your laptop yourself.

The first step in decorating your laptop is to choose a theme. As many people as there are in the world is how many laptop themes that you can come up with. Here are some suggestions to get you started on your theme discovery:

1. Favorite books, or favorite characters in a book
2. Sports themes. Feature certain sports, all sports, certain players or positions. Also good is team colors
3. College-Choose your college or one that you admire
4. Notable Quotes
5. Fortune Cookie Quotes
6. Pets
7. Wildlife
8. Tropical places
9. World Travel
10. Seasons
11. Toys
12. Cars
13. Movies
14. Cosmetics
15. Book Covers
16. Family
17. Museums
18. Faith and Worship
19. Music
20. Your Favorite Things

Once you have decided on a theme, there are companies online that are willing to make a custom decal sized to fit your laptop lid completely. Some of these are very clever, making the laptop appear as though it is something else. Others are cute or clever images, and some are simply a different color than your current laptop lid.

I have seen portraits, popcorn, cityscapes, beach scenes, pirates, Snow White for Mac uses, there are no limits here.

With custom decals, you send in a photo that meets their minimum and maximum resolution standards. They print it and you have a custom deck lid.

When ordering a custom decal, note if the decal is only for a certain side lid, or if it is designed for specific models. Don't guess at what model your laptop is. Manufacturers that make decals for specific models cannot be held responsible for a decal not fitting your laptop properly if you did not order the correct decal.

When I was traveling all over the world on a very frequent basis, I found myself using the same taxi service every time that I was in Paris. The driver gave me a few stickers to affix to my business card case so that I would have them handy. I also chose to affix one to the lid of my laptop. This was amazingly handy. Friends thought it was cool, I found it to be very useful.

Once I added the Paris Taxi sticker to the lid of my laptop, I begin to slowly add other stickers from my travels on the lid. A caution here is that stickers are not designed in most cases for the the constant in and out of a laptop bag that will happen to them. They will get scratched and will fade over time. I used a slightly larger piece of clear adhesive paper to cover the ones that I cared about.

Swag is also something to cover your laptop lid with. Swag can be free stickers from anywhere that you get free stickers. Some of the ones I have seen are from games, computer manufacturers, software designers, joystick makers and other computer related items. I have a friend that has covered the entire lid of their laptop with stickers from different business conventions that he has traveled to. He says that he ordered an extra lid for his laptop because when he has to turn this laptop into work, he will remove his current lid, replace it with the new and plain one and then hang the decorated one in his office.

Bling is just what you think it is. Glitter and shining rhinestones, jeweled pieces that shine in the sunlight. Bling is for the person that wants to get themselves and their accessories noticed at all times.

I have seen two laptop lids that were covered in fabric or fake fur. At first, I really liked the idea, and I thought that it was really cute. I was shopping in fabric stores for fabric to glue onto my own laptop.

I was lucky that I asked my friends who had already done it before I covered my laptop in fabric.The owners of both laptops are friends of mine, and they have both urged me and then actually begged me not to do fabric for the same exact reasons. Here they are:

1. Fabric gets dirty and you cannot clean it if the fabric is affixed to a laptop.
2. Removing fabric from a laptop is apparently a big deal, to as the only way to get the fabric to stay on the laptop is with spray glue.
3. If fabric gets an air bubble in it, the only way to fix it is to completely remove it and apply a new piece of fabric.
4. If you are extremely unlucky, even if you have pre-washed your fabric, when it is wet from your adhesive, it will bubble or peel off.

I do not suggest this idea for anyone. The friend who did the fake fur told me that her fake fur was so dusty, but when she contemplated removing it from her lid, it was beginning to bend the screen as she tried to tug it off. She still has a place on her screen where there is discoloration.

If you love the look of fabric, get it in a decal.

Yes, you want your laptop to look wonderful. You also want it to function and to be safe. Here are some tips to make sure that you are safe and that your laptop is able to be personalized without shorting the laptop.

1. Don't cover any holes, ports, outlets or vents on the computer anywhere. Those areas are typically for using features, cords, cables and allowing the computer fans to blow out the hot air that the fans pull off the workings of the computer. Cover these and you will quickly have a computer that overheats.
2. Don't work on making your laptop custom while it is plugged in or turned on.
3. Don't apply your decals without first reading all of the instructions.
4. Don't start working on your laptop without having the time to complete it all at once.
5. Don't use super glue or other permanent glues that say to not use with plastic. It will melt the plastic lid in places.
6. Don't use a hot glue gun. It will melt the plastic lid in places.
7. Don't use a product that you have to heat set, such as with a blow dryer. Laptops are not meant to withstand that intense directed heat.

Get a piece of poster board and cut it to the same measurement as your laptop lid. Arrange all of your pieces on the board without affixing them. Get them to wear you want them to be. A piece of advice is to not place things right up against the edge unless it is a full lid decal. After you have them arranged as you want them to be, then start affixing them to your lid. Close the lid to work on it, not with the lid standing up. Remember that you want to affix things on your laptop so that they are in the correct position when the laptop is open.

It is tempting to rush through and get everything done as fast as possible. Follow the directions and take your time. The results will show how much time you took with your project.

If you are not certain about how to complete a portion of your lid, when you researched it, you would have discovered it, easing frustration.

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