Mug Shots

I don't know what the weather has been like wherever you people are, but here in Lancaster it has been horrible. Rain rain rain and yes... more rain. Combined with the inevitable decline of summer television programmes, this is proving fatal for me and my husband. Normally this time of year we get out in the evenings and play a bit of frisbee or tennis or bowls, go for a walk somewhere or just sit in the garden and read for a while. But with all the wet weather I can safely say that neither of us will be suffering from tennis elbow anytime soon. Needless to say we're running short of fun, cheap indoor activities to fill our evenings with.

I recently discovered Pinterest. Yes, I realise I'm about a year and some odd month behind the curve on this one, but I've caught up now and it's like finding a whole new secret part of your house you didn't know about for years... or something on par with that feeling. I have a list of DIY home decor about three pages long, about 15 new hairstyles to try, and half a dozen recipes to attempt. I also found this super fun way of making (cheap) personalized mugs (and plates, bowls, saucers, whatever else you like). So yesterday I ran around town between showers and picked up some supplies (which was really the hardest part of this project, and we set to work on our personalized mugs after dinner.

 So all I needed for this project were plain white porcelain mugs. I got mine for 1.50 each at Sainsbury's because the pound shop and Wilkinson's both let me down, but these will probably hold up better anyway. And some sharpies, I got mine for half price at Ryman's, which was awesome! Altogether I spent under ten pounds for everything. If you happen to already have  sharpies at home well then lucky you.


So basically it was easy, we spent about an hour drawing all over our mugs. I outlined mine in pencil first, because I'm a bit of a perfectionist that way. If 
we messed up a bit we used some nail polish remover and a bit of cotton ball to wipe it off and start over. I just wrote on mine with funky letters, Tom got a bit more creative and put a volcano (surprise surprise) and his token spider on his. Once we finished we popped them into the oven for half an hour at 180 C. When they finished we left them to cool completely and then used them for a cup of tea.

I did find that some of the colors faded/ morphed into different colors in the oven, I couldn't tell you why this happened, but it did. Most of the colors were fine, but the lime green sort of went a browner color and Tom used a bit of yellow which faded and the light blue and teal both came out the same teal shade. Also, the teal ink on my mug seems to be rubbing off a bit, but the other colors are fine, so i might just reapply and rebake. I haven't washed them yet, so I don't know how they'll hold up. But Pinterest posters assure me that it's permanent but hand wash only. If it washes off then we just get another night of fun doing it again!