There’s No Place Like Home Mug

For my 10-year high school class reunion (Am I really that old?), I was amassing $1 gag gifts to give away as awards.  (More on that in a later post.)  One gift idea on my wish list was a “There’s no place like home” mug, t-shirt, whatever.  Obviously I wasn’t going to find anything Wizard of Oz themed within my budget.  I had seen a bunch of cute DIY mugs on Pinterest.  One popular design came where people had drawn states with hearts over a city in sharpie on the mug.  I decided to do something similar for the reunion.  After researching many sites online, these are the steps that I followed to make the mug.  I will update this post if the design immediately washes off.  I thought it turned out really cute!

Materials:

• Mug
• Pencil
• Oil-based Sharpie markers
• Computer/Printer (optional)

Instructions:

1.  Buy a cheap mug at the dollar store or Walmart.  From what I’ve read, the cheaper mugs have a cheaper glaze that will melt.  The design you draw on the mug is supposed to merge with the melted glaze and become permanent.
2. Decide on a design.  You may want to design the mug using a computer program.  I scaled a map of Indiana in Microsoft PowerPoint, put a heart over my hometown of Scottsburg, and typed the text I wanted next to it.  I wasn’t going to trace all of that on the mug, but it was useful to print it out to make sure my text size was appropriate.
3. Sketch your design on the mug using a pencil.  I cut out my Indiana and traced it.  I free-hand drew the heart and text using the approximate size from my computer print-out.
4. Draw over your pencil design using oil-based Sharpie markers.
5. Allow the mug to sit for 24 hours.  I’m not sure if this step is necessary, but many sites included it.
6. Place the mug in a cold oven.  Heat the oven to 450 degrees.  After the oven reaches 450 degrees, turn the it off.  Allow the mug to sit in the oven overnight or until it is completely cool.  The glaze on the cheap ceramic should have melted slightly and reset with the colorful design.

The mug should be dishwasher safe according to what I have read.  I will let you know how it turns out!

Difficulty:  Easy

Time Required:  15 minutes of work, about 36 hours of waiting

Overall Experience:  Excellent