Personalized Mugs: BUSTED!

Everyone on Pinterest has seen those cute pins about how to personalize your own mugs.  All it takes is a sharpie, an oven cranked up to 350 degrees, and 30 minutes to spare.  And the pins always come with cute promising photos like these:

...just a sharpie and heat.  No need for porcelain pens at all...

LIES!

I definitely tried this at home and it did NOT work. 

At all.

Don't do it.

When I first saw the pin I totally bought into it. I thought "Oh gee, wouldn't that be a super cute gift for my roommate for Christmas! I know, she loves Dr. Who! Maybe I can decorate a Dr. Who mug for her..." If I had known my results would have been so fruitless I would have never tried it in the first place.  

Just as instructed I decorated the mug with regular sharpies and baked the mug at 350 for 30min.  When it emerged from the oven, Rose's formerly yellow blond hair had been turned more of a sandy brown color.  But other than this all seemed well.  The sharpie wasn't smudging and I gave it to my roommate for Christmas.  Since I hadn't tested it out before I told her it wouldn't probably hold up in the dishwasher and that she should handwash it.  Boy was that an understatement.  

The before and after picture below is from 1 gentle hand washing.  I'm sure if it had been put in the dishwasher the mug would have come out completely white without any reminiscence of my design. 

After one hand washing folks. One.

As I said earlier I used sharpie, but other posts have claimed that a porcelain pen will work.  I have yet to try this and I don't feel very optimistic about it, hence my lack of effort to try it out.  BUT when I do give it a shot I will post my results on this blog.

Spread the word. Pinterest lies.


~Crafty Girl~