Invent It! MousePad Kit

Rating:
Summary: Great idea to make easy & unique gifts!
Review: My children just finished making a mousepad to give Grandma for Mothers' Day. Please note you will need your own creative software to design the layout (we used Hanes T-Shirt maker as it has a mousepad option, then combined the program's graphics with an imported image of the children). The mousepad turned out wonderfully, the colors were sharp and not faded, and the directions for transferring the image were simple. I've used other transfer papers and found the paper included in this kit was sturdier and held the ink colors better without oversaturating in spots as can happen with other brands. The children are already planning on making end-of-year gifts for their teachers, scanning in class photos to make the mousepads.

Rating:
Summary: Great idea to make easy & unique gifts!
Review: My children just finished making a mousepad to give Grandma for Mothers' Day. Please note you will need your own creative software to design the layout (we used Hanes T-Shirt maker as it has a mousepad option, then combined the program's graphics with an imported image of the children). The mousepad turned out wonderfully, the colors were sharp and not faded, and the directions for transferring the image were simple. I've used other transfer papers and found the paper included in this kit was sturdier and held the ink colors better without oversaturating in spots as can happen with other brands. The children are already planning on making end-of-year gifts for their teachers, scanning in class photos to make the mousepads.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but be careful...
Review: The final product is great -- sharp colors, very little bleeding, no peeling. Much better than I would have expected from a do-it-yourself kit. I printed these on a couple different printers, and even the ones done on my cheap little $50 printer ended up looking as good as the ones you get from the copy stores or mall kiosks, plus you get the satisfaction of saying you made it yourself.

Getting to the finished mousepad takes a bit a patience though, as the one problem with this product is the packaging. There's no cardboard reinforcement to keep the sheets flat inside the box, and they get a bit wrinkled and bent up somewhere between the factory and you (it's not Amazon's fault, you get the same results if you buy them in the store). I had several get jammed up in the printer because they kept curling up (at 4 bucks a sheet, it's frustrating). Oh yeah, and make sure you're not going to run out of ink in the middle of printing. Buy some fresh cartridges while you're here online.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but be careful...
Review: The final product is great -- sharp colors, very little bleeding, no peeling. Much better than I would have expected from a do-it-yourself kit. I printed these on a couple different printers, and even the ones done on my cheap little $50 printer ended up looking as good as the ones you get from the copy stores or mall kiosks, plus you get the satisfaction of saying you made it yourself.

Getting to the finished mousepad takes a bit a patience though, as the one problem with this product is the packaging. There's no cardboard reinforcement to keep the sheets flat inside the box, and they get a bit wrinkled and bent up somewhere between the factory and you (it's not Amazon's fault, you get the same results if you buy them in the store). I had several get jammed up in the printer because they kept curling up (at 4 bucks a sheet, it's frustrating). Oh yeah, and make sure you're not going to run out of ink in the middle of printing. Buy some fresh cartridges while you're here online.