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DIY-Sharpie-Mugs

It’s crazy, you can design a custom ceramic mug with nothing more than a few Sharpies and some patience.  Don’t have patience, you say?  I say you can still accomplish a work of art with your custom sharpie mugs.

When it comes to gifts.  People try to buy that perfect present for their loved ones.  Stress is often involved in the process.  Preparing, thinking and shopping bring out the worst in some of the best people.  Perhaps a home made gift that looks like it was purchased in a store would be an ideal gift.  Anyone can create the perfect gift out of a dollar store ceramic mug.

The almighty dollar $$

The part I don’t like is the commercialism involved in gift giving. Don’t get me wrong I don’t have a problem with capitalism. People need to be able to make a living.   I believe that the thought of a gift needs to be more important than the amount of $$$$$ used to purchased it.  As a blogger my eyes have been opened to the ideas for truly elegant gifts that can be made without spending a small fortune.

Custom sharpie mugs

Which brings me to my reason for writing this post today. I am always on the search for a unique gift that I can give. I am not rich.   So I am limited in assetts available for my gift giving pursuits.

This idea came from my oldest daughter. So I’ll give her all the credit. She attended a winter formal and one of the gifts were plain white coffee mugs. The couples then were to take the available sharpie markers and decorate their mugs. My daughter is an artist and drew a minion on hers with the date of the dance. Her date was so impressed that he asked her to draw the same thing on his. Instant keepsakes for not a lot of money.

I am not an artist like my daughter so I needed a way to decorate using my abilities.

Products used for the Custom sharpie mugs

First off don’t forget the coffee mugs.  You can get a great price on mugs at Dollar Tree or any of your other dollar based stores out there.

Sharpie oil based markers

Cricut

Stencil vinyl

If you don’t want to buy stencil vinyl.  Read below for an option that I came across.  I have tested it and it does work really well.

Cricut and Contact paper

I was browsing through Youtube and came across a video of a lady using an inexpensive type of vinyl in her Cricut. She had purchased it at a Dollar General. It is a temporary type of vinyl and easy to be removed.  It comes in patterned vinyl and also clear.

‘Well the old light bulb went off as I thought about cutting the designs on my cricut using this inexpensive vinyl as a stencil for my mugs.  It is simple to cut and very easy to weed. The version of vinyl I used is a self adhesive contact paper at Walmart. It is a huge roll and it will last forever. They sell it also in clear.  The beauty of the clear paper is that you can  use it as your transfer paper. It sticks well enough to pull up your design and releases it with out a fight.

Its creation time

For this mug I chose to make it for my son. It doesn’t take a brainstorming session to figure out what he likes. I chose to use the flash symbol on one side and put his initials on the other side. I have used the flash symbol several times before in other projects. But for this one it had to be cut differently. I needed it to be cut in and out so color could be applied inside the lightning bolt and the circle.

Which is simple task to accomplish in Design space. The initials are also cut in the same way. So we could apply black to the inside. After cutting simply weed your design and transfer it to your transfer paper.

Then carefully apply it to your mug. Make sure you apply your design low enough that lips won’t make contact with your design when used for drinking. Gently smooth out any wrinkles or bubbles and then slowly remove the transfer paper. It should leave the design easily.

Coloring Time

Time to bring out your inner child and color your design. Oil based sharpies work the best for decorating your sharpie mug but regular sharpies will still work. I found some on Amazon at a great price. You can compare here. Once you have finished coloring your masterpiece let it dry for a few hours. Then just slowly remove your contact stencil. Now its time to admire your mug.

DIY Personalized Sharpie Mugs

You can see some bleed through the vinyl.  We took care of that with a little outlining.

As always thanks for reading. Please leave comments below.

Visit my etsy store at https://www.etsy.com/shop/JFamilyCrafters to see more items.

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