Sharpie Mugs

My new project buddy Claire and I decided to take on the popular Pinterest "sharpie mug" craft. According to most pins, you just write on a plain mug with sharpies, bake for an hour, and voila! New mug! We stumbled upon a few sites though that said that the sharpies wiped away easily, removing all trace of artistic prowess. 

So we took it a step further and bought paint pens (some random brand, but apparently the sharpie brand is really good) and used a couple of the designs we'd liked on Pinterest. 

Claire chose a tree and I did an initial mug. 

I didn't have a letter sticker in the size I wanted so I traced the letter "B" onto wax paper and stuck a bunch of washi tape to that. I cut it out and then peeled the wax paper away from the washi tape and had a sticker! I was proud of my ingenuity. 

Claire free handed her tree, which was much more impressive than tracing a letter.

From the limited options available, I chose red and gold, which happen to be Florida State's colors. I just made dots all over with my paint pen. It did bleed under my "sticker" a bit, so I scraped off the paint with my fingernail. 

We put them in a cold oven, turned it to 350, and left them to bake for an hour. When the hour was up, I left them in the oven until it was cool. Supposedly this helps them set, which I can't confirm since I didn't test out the durability of the mugs after this.

The next morning, I took them outside and sprayed with the acrylic spray I had leftover from this project at Christmas. The clear glaze seemed to create that extra layer of protection for our cute little mugs.

And here they are!