How To Make a Simple Personalised Mug

You can never have too many mugs in your kitchen cupboard at home. Here’s a cute and simple way to create a personalised mug as a last minute gift, or for yourself if you’re feeling crafty.

These would be great wrapped in clear cellophane and filled with treats like fudge, marshmallows and such for gift giving this Christmas.

You’ll need a plain mug. (The cheaper the better in this instance as the glaze will likely be less resistant when you come to heat it) Some vinyl stickers (letters, shapes, whatever you want. But vinyl…NOT paper as the ink will bleed through paper) and an oil based sharpie or a ceramic pen. Categorically, do not use a normal sharpie pen as they are water based and the marks will start to come off as soon as you wash it.

Make sure your mug is clean and dry before you start. Clean the surface with white spirit/rubbing alcohol/nail polish remover to remove any residual grease before you start. Use the stickers to spell out your message taking care to keep the letters evenly spaced and level AND making sure they are firmly smoothed down all over but especially at the edges.

Take your pen and overlap “polka dots” all the way around the outline of the letters including any spaces inside the letters. Don’t overload the nib of the pen at this stage as it may lead to some of the paint seeping under the edge of the stickers and we want a nice clean edge.

Allow to dry. Leave it for an hour; before carefully removing the stickers. Use nail polish remover, cotton buds and a small scraping tool of some kind to clean up any ink that has “bled” under the stitckers. There shouldn’t be much if you firmed the edges down and didn’t overload the paint.

Source

Once the stickers are removed, you can go back and add more dots to even out the graduated effect. Leave to “cure” for a day or so then bake in the oven. For a sharpie one place the mug in the oven then heat up to 220 celsius. Bake for 30-45 minutes. Switch the oven off and allow to cool completely before removing from the oven. If you use a ceramic pen, follow the manufacturers instructions for setting/fixing the paint. For both pens the finished mugs will be handwash only for best durability.

Gracie Finch