Gateway laptop/Mouse repaint over holidays, need advice!

So with the holidays upon us and me having a few days to kill, I was thinking about getting my laptop and my gaming mouse some new paint jobs. For the curious, the laptop is a gateway p-7811FX (the awesome one with the 1920x1200 screen ) and the mouse is a sidewinder X8 wireless gaming mouse.

I was going to paint the two a matching white w/black accents and lettering. The current plan is for the FX to have a pure white lid with "Gateway spelled out in the middle in medium sized letters in their particular style. I was going to make a bit of a stencil using some card stock to shape out and carve the letters out using a box cutter for a good edge. The keyboard area was going to be white down by where the wrists are and black above the touchpad except for the keyboard surround which would be white. The underside of the laptop would stay black. Any of the metallic orange on the sides of the laptop will be white.

The mouse is an all black mouse as it is. I was going to leave the center line of the mouse as black and paint the buttons white. but on the white buttons, I was going to try and achieve a rough gradient by putting just a hint of black at the top of both buttons, then sand, then slowly go a little further down each time. Possibly paint the sides white to have the white buttons surrounded by black.

But I have a few questions about all of this

1) It is automotive paints I want right? Any particular brands I should go for?

2) do I sand the ifnal layer of paint before the clear coats? Do I sand the clear coats? Why doesn't this ruin the gloss?

3) For my lettering and accents, do I do those as final additions before the clear coat or should I do them first, mask them off, and then paint around them?

4) thoughts/ideas on the design? It's a little late so I don't feel like posting reference pictures but I've never seen a white FX before so I figure it's worth a shot