DIY 'Sharpie' Mug

Happy Wednesday! I hope everyone is having a great week...mine has been a 'calm before the storm' type of week. But I'm happy to have some downtime and be able to spend this time in places that I love with people that I love. 

Today, I'm going to share a fun DIY project. There are so many pins and pictures on social media showing 'Sharpie Mugs/Plates/Bowls/Etc' and I really wanted to try this project out. I decided to make a custom mug.

Supplies:

 

• Mug (purchased from the dollar store)
• Permanent markers

Instructions:

• Clean. I took off the sticker price tag from the store and washed my mug with dish soap and water. I would suggest doing this and running it through your dishwasher as well. Your mug needs to be CLEAN. I thought mine was clean, but there was some residue left by the sticker, which ended up being baked on to my mug. 
• Decorate. I love this project because you can be as creative as you want, simple or complex. Since this was a test project, I decided to keep my 'design' simple. On one side I wrote 'Leading a life full of...' and on the other side I wrote 'Dreams and Colour'
• Bake.  With the help of Google, I discovered that the mug should be baked at 350 for half an hour, which I did.

So, how did it turn out?

As you can see from the pictures, what was done in black marker turned out well. The blue, pink and red markers, although super light, are still readable. I made a mug for a friend and used a dark purple marker, which turned out similar to the blue used for 'Dreams'.

I did end up tracing everything and re-baking to see if that would make the colours stand out more, but it didn't.

Couple of things to note:

• Not dishwasher safe. I put the mug in the dishwasher and everything more or less washed off.
• Potentially microwave safe. I did put the mug in the microwave for about 45 seconds and I didn't notice a change to the marker colours. Full disclosure- I only did this once so I'm not sure what would happen if the mug is put in the microwave repeatedly. 
• I know that this is called a 'Sharpie' mug but any type of permanent markers will work; Sharpie is a brand of permanent markers. I used Bic permanent markers.

The verdict?

While this is a super simple project that has the opportunity for tons of creativity and makes a great personalized gift, it really only works with black markers- which is fine, but I am a girl who LOVES colour. I have made a few of mugs for friends and they all loved them!



On the blog tomorrow...Bedtime Stories Baby Shower- Gifts & Book Recommendations.