I made this for another project I'm working on and thought I'd share. It's a PCB mask for wiring up a NES controller on a very small (~1" square) board. There are pads for the controller wires and holes for wiring in the buttons, so it'd be useful for a project using existing buttons (I'm using it to wire up a broken Game Boy as an NES controller), using a PCB rather than ratsnest wiring while taking up very little space. It uses the TI CD4021B-Q1 SMT package http://www.ti.com/product/cd4021b-q1 and 0805 SMT resistors, both of which are quite easy to hand solder, and all of the traces should be well within margins for home etching. Once I manage to get access to a laser printer, I'll actually etch one of my own and post back with the results.
I made a few adjustments, made the traces larger and moved the button pads to the standard 0.1" pin header spacing. Still having issues with attachments, so here's the Eagle schematics and the 600dpi images. http://www.mediafire.com/?6c5ld1kk1p4r37i
The etch came out great, I have the IC mounted, now I'm just waiting for the resistors to come in (should be in by tomorrow, I hope). So I can confirm that the etching mask is certainly doable at-home, and so is soldering the SMT version of the 4021 (1.27mm pitch is easy). The resistors shouldn't be a problem with tweezers. I'll post pictures once those are on.
The answer to 1984 is 1776!
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." - Plato
Got the resistors in today and finished up the board. Tested it and it works great. Interestingly (and completely coincidentally), it's almost exactly the same size as an SD card (and with the shape of the traces, you could cut the one corner and make it even more exact if you felt like it...)