I love my morning coffee. My routine is to have one cup at home and then take another cup with me to work in a travel mug. We moved last May, and while packing I sent several of my coffee mugs to Goodwill. Recently though, I started to get bored with my same old coffee mugs and decided I wanted to get some new ones (luckily we have a bit more cabinet space in our new house). I found several at different stores that I liked but thought it was the perfect opportunity to try a DIY project from Pinterest. I had pinned a few different DIY coffee mug projects so I read each one and picked the pin that sounded most promising.
The supply list for this project is short – just two items. You will need Sharpies and coffee mugs. Make sure you buy the Sharpies that are oil based paint Sharpies. After reading several pins, the regular Sharpies, although permanent, wash off in the dishwasher. If you enjoy hand washing then feel free to use those. For me, if it doesn’t say dishwasher safe then I’m not buying it! I bought two different styles of plain white coffee mugs at the Dollar Tree. I bought my oil based paint Sharpies at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon and they were right around $12. There are also several different color choices of these markers on Amazon and they range from $12-$15.
The pin I used said to use scrapbook stencil letters for the mugs. I wanted this to be a fairly cheap project, so I just made my own letter stencil or template with a font I liked and used double sided tape to adhere it to the coffee mug. I also wanted to do a patterned mug so I Googled and found a chevron pattern that I liked and would fit the size of the mug. In the pin, the blogger made a mug by just free hand drawing her own design. I might be the least artistic person on the planet so I decided against just free forming my mugs. My oldest daughter was happy to do that though and she drew adorable drawings on two mugs for me.
Once we were done decorating our mugs, I put them on a cookie sheet and into a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. The markers do smell a bit when baking but it wasn’t overpowering and it only needs to bake for 30 minutes so it was bearable. Once they were done baking, I left them in there another 30 minutes to cool.
I love the way the mugs turned out! A couple of the colors changed a bit after baking (got a little darker) but overall the colors stayed the same. I made these a couple of weeks ago and have put them in the dishwasher several times and none of the design has come off or worn off a bit. If you don’t want to risk it or, unlike me, don’t mind washing by hand you could always do that too and skip the dishwasher. I definitely plan on making more of these for myself and for gifts in the future. I think they would make adorable Mother’s Day gifts for mom or grandma! My daughter loved making them with me and she smiles each morning when I use the mug she made. Although I love the look of the mugs I made, I definitely prefer her original designs! It was a fun, inexpensive project we were able to do togther.
Carrie’s Tips:
- Make sure and let the marker in your design dry before removing the stencil/template. I was a bit too anxious to see what mine looked like and I smeared a couple of the dots because I removed my letter stencil too soon.
- Have some patience with the markers too. It does take a while to get the paint going in the markers. At first I thought they weren’t going to work but it turns out it just takes time and patience (which I obviously was short on during this project!).
- If you make a stray mark or smear while decorating your mug, you can wipe it away with rubbing alcohol. The pin suggested using a q-tip and that is what I did.
Find this pin on my Well, that was Pinteresting board at: pinterest.com
