Cora: Kid Friendly Sharpie Mug DIY

This DIY is brought to you via my Toddler 2 classroom! 

Although we used this process for a Mother's Day gift, the process can be adapted to create an endless amount of designs. 

As I was trying to decide what my little friends should give their mommies this year for Mother's Day I naturally found myself on Pinterest (go figure, right?). I saw cute toilet paper roll flowers, 'send a hug' cut outs, and plenty of other flower/bouquet gifts. Although those are all wonderful things they are not creative enough for me. And as the teacher I wanted to get the kids a little more involved. 

I had been wanting to try my hand on the sharpie mug craze for a while now and I figured this would be a great opportunity to do a little experimenting. I tested out a mug at home before letting the kids have a go at it and found a few helpful tips when scouring Pinterest. 

1. Buy cheap mugs! Dollar store or Wal-Mart work great!

2. Wipe mugs clean with rubbing alcohol or alcohol swabs before drawing on your designs. 

3. Place mugs in oven before preheating. Set to 450 degrees. Bake for 30 minutes. Shut off oven and let cool COMPLETELY in oven before removing. 

As far as I've read.. Regular sharpies should work just fine if you use this process. I personally would still not put my sharpie mug in the dishwasher (just in case!). If you have time you can test your sharpies first. Get an extra mug and test each color you have, the purple I had the kids use turned a light pink color. While that was just fine for this project I was rather disappointed because purple is my favorite. :( 

Now, to the fun stuff! How did I get two year olds to leave 'MOM' written on their scribbled mugs?! 

After cleaning the mugs with alcohol I cut out the word 'MOM' in contact paper and applied it to the mugs. Then one by one the kids got to 'color' for mommy. They wore paint shirts so they wouldn't get marker on their clothes, and they were excited about using 'teacher markers'! Once they were done coloring I made sure that there was marker along the edge of the whole piece of contact paper (adding a few little marks to fill in the empty spaces). Let dry for a minute or two to avoid smudging and then removed the contact paper. 

And voila! Super cute kid friendly mug ready for the oven! The kids were so proud of their work once I removed the contact paper and showed them what they had done! 

 

Like I said earlier, this process could be used to create so many designs. Let me know what your kids create. 

Feelin' crafty,

Cora

PS... We had a great response from a few of our moms! They loved their mugs and thought it was a super cute idea! :)