DIY Disney Inspired Sharpie Mug

Yeah, another Sharpie Mug project. There seems to be another one every time I turn around. Here's the deal: I had to know. Does it work? How? How long does it stay? Can it go in the dishwasher? So I decided to give it a whirl here at the cottage and let you all know exactly what I discovered.

I found this adorable little mug and immediately thought of my favorite Disney artist, Mary Blair, and how precious a little Small World & Sword in the Stone inspiration would be right there on the side of it. Done! I found these adorable little squirrels in the Silhouette shop. Specifically, I used "Squirrel" (design ID 31948), "Retro Tree" (design ID 3343), the heart from "I Love You Card" (design ID 24426) and the leaf from a random "flower" design. I then aligned them on the Silhouette using the alignment feature and cut out this vinyl stencil.

Applying the stencil to a curved surface was tricky. Cutting slits along the bottom of the stencil between shapes was helpful, but there was plenty of finagling involved.

I used Whipperberry's Sharpie Mug Gift Tutorial. Which means I used regular Sharpies so this mug is not headed for the dishwasher. (Apparently the oil-based Sharpies do well in dishwasher. But given enough research, they too seem to fail.) I used both my fine tips and my broad tip markers with great results, at first. You can see the marker lines on some of the colors, but try as I might (and I am generally adept at such things,) I couldn't find a way to completely eliminate these. Also, if you do this, use the light colors before the dark ones. I drew the yellow spots on after the outline of the tree and the marker wanted to bleed into the yellow, even though I had applied it 24 hours before.

I baked this mug at 350 for 30 min and let it cool down in the oven. The lighter colors turned a little browner after baking. I wasn't prepared for that. I waited 24 hours before hand washing. And in the end, the design still scrubbed right of. Bummer.

At this point I was thinking about using the mug to hold little bits and bobs in the studio. But I read in the comments on Pinstrosity that baking at 450 for 30 min might do the trick, so I gave that a try. (By the way, the comments on this were all over the map. Seems that mugs can vary greatly even when you buy the same brand and use the same pens and oven. Boo.) No such luck. It looks like this sweet mug is destined for the studio after all. So until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!