Consider this: You are a creative person. You have a signature style and strive for originality. Everything from your hairstyle, your clothes, and yes, that hint of cinnamon and rhubarb sweat that is yours alone, define and complement your individuality. So why is it that you and your mom both have standard-issue Dells and often get your iPods confused for one another’s?

Turns out, an oft-overlooked creative outlet are the tools of creativity themselves. Our point? Why settle for a black laptop emblazoned with a corporate logo when it could be neon green and in the shape of a mythological creature of your choosing? It’s one thing to use technology to be creative, and quite another to actually get creative with your technology. Here now are 6 ways to trick out your tech:

Skins

One simple way to immediately differentiate your devices is to put them in some new skin. [Insert inappropriate Silence of the Lambs joke here]. Skins, the form-fitted design adhesives that gussy up phones, computers, gaming consoles, and… well, you name it, enable you to personalize and literally put your own stamp on your gadgets (and even search engines). So if you’re a big baseball fan, or you want to accessorize your acid wash jeans and killer mullet with something Bon Jovi, you can let your freak flag fly with any number of customizable skins available through sites such as our very own bestbuyskins.com. And if choosing from premade skins isn’t quite creative enough, you can even customize your own photos and artwork to design your own one-of-a-kind skin.

Computer Modding

Okay, let’s face it: slapping a skin on your PC is more of a band-aid solution when it comes to customizing your computer. The truly adventurous among us don’t just slip on a Star Wars skin, they go ahead and rebuild the thing in the shape of R2-D2. The practice of “modding,” or “modifying,” is essentially the art of crafting a unique and custom casing for all the internal workings of a computer. Because who says a computer tower has to be rectangular, and not say… shaped like a pumpkin, or made to look like Wall-E? The novice modder is best to begin with a custom case such as the Antec 300 to first ensure they can build a PC from the ground up, and then move on to more ambitious “scratch-built” computer cases.

Or you could just change your desktop picture.

Custom Speaker Boxes

A similar concept to computer modding is custom speaker box building. Many fun-loving audiophiles will get creative and hide their speakers within custom built cases, which opens up the options from those standard black boxes. Now you can house your speakers in what appear to be rocks, stuffed animals or maybe even contemporary sculptures. Whether or not it sounds good is another question…

Earbuds & Headphones as Fashion Accessories

Those white earbuds that come standard with every iPod are about as unique and exciting as a loaf of similarly colored bread. Everyone’s got ‘em. Fortunately a new market’s opened up for those of us that view our earpieces as fashion accessories. Not only do new earbuds and headphones from the likes of Beats By Dr. Dre, Skullcandy, and Bose—just to name a few—look better, they sound better too. Or, if you’ve still got a soft spot for the those iconic iPod earpieces, you could always decorate, bedazzle or dare we say… bejewel good ol’ R ‘n’ L with any number of custom earbud clips available online, or break out the puff paints and googly-eyes and go to town on your own. After all, these things ride pretty close to your face, your most unique accessory.

Record Your Own Ringtone

Sick of all those stock ringtones that come preloaded on your cell? While you could download the latest annoying pop song that was super trendy just five minutes ago, a better, more creative option might be to outfit your phone with personalized rings such as voice messages from family and friends, or music of your own meddling. Plus, you can assign unique songs or messages to each of your frequent contacts so you’ll know just who’s calling even before picking up. Using a free audio recording software such as Audacity or others like it to record and export is a simple solution that, along with a cell skin (or failing that, a piece of masking tape with your name on it), will make your phone undeniably yours.

Custom Home Theater

For many of us, our home theater set-up is a sanctuary. We’ve got our HDTV, sound system and lighting just how we like ‘em. For others, it’s a sanctuary… literally. While this option may be a bit outer limits for the majority of us, it never hurts to look, right? Utilizing custom home theater services the likes of Magnolia, AUDIOVISIONS, Elite HTS, among others, home theater extremists have outfitted their pads with custom décor and transformed their living rooms into temples, space lounges and in one case, a fully functioning Batcave. Check out these 12 absolutely insane custom home theater set-ups and then get to work on your own “Fortress of Solitude.”