The Christmas Mug Project

Happy New Year, everyone! In the back of my head, I’ve been planning a post about our holiday travels, my new year’s resolutions, updates on various projects, etc. but so far I haven’t been organized enough to get it all down.  So here’s a quick post on a new (to me) craft:
 

I’m a big believer that experiences last longer than gifts (though gifts are nice, too). So this Christmas I decided to give my nieces, my two older girls, and my brother and sister-in-law a craft project they could do together when we were all in Connecticut visiting visiting my mother.

My sister-in-law’s mug. She has a hidden talent for caricature!

I got the idea from this post at Design Mom. I have to admit I really liked the idea of everyone doing an initial or a name or some other kind of theme (Christmas 2010!), but I was pretty sure that any attempt to corral five little girls (not to mention my brother and my sister-in-law who are also pretty stubborn) into doing the same thing would end in disaster.  I left out Design Mom’s transfer paper and just bought a bunch of Pebeo porcelaine pens (I bought ours at Michael’s) in different colors, wrapped each one up with an off-white mug from Goodwill, and told everyone to go to town. It was a fun project and I hope the cousins will remember doing it together for a long time.

My niece Daria working on her mug

Big Kid with hers (not sure if it’s obvious but that’s a dinosaur)

Here are a few thoughts if you decide to try something like this yourself:

• We used the fine-tip pens. Nothing wrong with using the wide-tip ones, of course, but the packaging for the two kinds is almost identical. Check the pens carefully before you buy to make sure you’re getting the kind you want.

• I bought some of the pens individually as well four (red, yellow, blue and dark green) that came together as a boxed set. Can’t tell you why, but the pens that came as a set didn’t work nearly as well as the ones bought separately; the ink didn’t flow smoothly out of them at all. There was nothing on the label to say they were any different (though the caps were differently shaped). If I buy more pens I’ll buy them all individually.

• You can buy paints as well as pens. I bought one tube of gold “outliner” paint that puffed up a bit when baked. Very cool effect, but harder for small hands to control.

• Note that the instructions on the Dick Blick site are a bit more detailed than the package directions. Probably worth a read if you try it.