When we did our mass de-cluttering we got rid of more mugs than we wanted, because we were doing this mug decorating date night, so we were going to have some new ones coming, and these would obviously be better and cuter than any others :].
So, there are so many tutorials online about Sharpie decorated mugs, but some say that the oil based sharpies are awesome, others say they suck and others say that DecoArt Glass Paint Markers are the only ones that work. So, we tried both.
We hadn’t really thought of designs beforehand, as I’m sure you can tell, but it was still a lot of fun. We also purchased square-ish shaped mugs, which actually made the decorating a lot harder. I’d definitely go for the round mugs when we do this again.
To do your own mug decorating night you want to get some white ceramic mugs. Well, any color works, but your colors will show up better on white. Then, wash and dry your mugs.
You can use a pencil to draw your design on it first, or just go straight for the markers like we did. Masking tape could also be useful depending on what design you’re trying to do.
Once you’re done decorating you want to bake your mugs at 350 degrees for 20 minutes to set paint, then let them cool completely (I did overnight) before removing them from the oven.
We did a mug with Sharpies, and one with the DecoArt markers, putting both in the dishwasher, and they both held up just fine. Granted, that’s only one wash, but from the initial wash they did great. We’ll still probably hand wash them just to be safe, but they appear dishwasher safe. **Update** after multiple washes the Sharpie decorated mugs started to flake off, while the DecoArt was still fine.
Now, which markers did we prefer? The Sharpies. They both work well, but the DecoArt ones bleed like crazy, and don’t dry right away, so we kept smudging our mugs and having to get wet paper towels to wipe them off. By the end of using those our hands were covered in the markers, which were leaving fingerprints on the mugs, whereas the Sharpies didn’t do that at all, unless I touched the ink as I was drawing with it.
These mugs were a lot of fun, and it was fun to see K a bit out of his element rather then me for once. His mugs are my favorite. <3 We’ll definitely do them again when A gets older and can join in, they’d make perfect grandparent gifts, and are so much cheaper than Color Me Mine :].
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