(Not sure ehich category is best, so I’m sticking this here!)
I’ve been going down- rabbit hole for a while trying to find the best portable word processor… and I kept ending up back on these AlphaSmart models from the early-ish 2000’s, so I finally managed to find one for not too expensive. The shell had a funny smoothed spot and the little sticker with keyboard shortcuts on the back was all wonky and wrinkly, so I thought it would be a good candidate for a repaint. I always look at the color shift Rustoleum cans in rhe paint aisle at the hardware store and I am excited I finally had something worthy of using it!
It actually wasn’t too bad to take apart, so I didn’t need to use painters tape or anything to mask out any areas. (The trickiest part was trying to get as much of the giant sticker off as possible-- I ended up sanding the most stubborn adhesive as well as I could; it wasn’t perfect, but it’s on the back, so meh.)
Also, this paint requires a black base coat, but the plastic was already black, so I just went for it, and it seems to have turned out okay.
Here are a few angles for the range of purple-blue colors. (Hard to get photos! I swear it’s pretty neat in real life! Haha!)
I did end up putting a couple stickers in the space for the back sticker plate, just so the slight bumpiness wouldn’t bother me too much. (Left sticker is an 'i’iwi drawn by a local artist. Right sticker is censored 
)
I’m just happy with how much of a difference a few coats of paint can make!
