Mother’s Day Mugs

This year for Mother’s Day I made mugs with the kids as a gift to ME. I think Michelle from Crafty Morning stated it best when she said: “I know I’m not supposed to be making my own Mother’s Day gifts…but when you are a blogger who does crafts that’s just what you do.” She is completely correct, and I am beyond grateful for the blog post she did that is linked above. Without it I would not have been able to make my favorite Mother’s Day gift yet!

I found her blog post scrolling through Pinterest, and just loved the idea of mugs with handprints making a heart on them. It was a bonus seeing the cute notes kids could leave on the mugs. When I saw it, I knew it was something I had to do. So, I went to the Dollar Tree and grabbed four white mugs, I was/am unaware of any qualifications for the type of mug to use. I already had acrylic paint and sponge brushes. I do recommend having more than one sponge brush on hand in case your children are wanting to do more than one color per hand like mine did; because, if you leave the paint on their hands for too long it will dry. The last tool I needed to order was the acrylic pens from Amazon.

Once I had all the supplies, it was time to round up the children. Before starting I explained to them how I needed their hands to be. After that was done, I would put the color of paint they wanted on the section of their hand that they wanted. Then, I spread the paint using the sponge brushes. When the paint was spread I guided their hand while holding the mug, to stamp their handprint onto the mug in a heart shape, and then repeated the same process with their other hand. Once the handprint hearts were printed onto the mugs, I set them aside and let them dry.

When the acrylic paint from the handprints had dried, approximately 5-10 minutes, I pulled out the acrylic pens. They were super easy to use so the kids needed little to no help. All you had to do was shake, and then press down one time to activate the paint. The kids then used the pens to write their Mother’s Day notes to me. I did help guide the hands of my 3 and 2-year-old to write the letters.

After all the words were put onto the mugs I turned them over and put a few drops of doTerra Lemon oil to take off the sticker with no issue. Be aware if the doTerra Lemon oil gets on the paint it will make it come off, so you may want to do this step before painting the mugs. The last step in making the mugs, after the sticker is removed, is putting them in the oven for 30 minutes when it is at 350 degrees.

These are by far some of my favorite possessions now! They have great memories, and they are adorable! That being said, I am terrified to wash them! The last thing I want to do is use them, wash them, and have all the paint come off; therefore, I decided to conduct an experiment.

To conduct the experiment, I got one of the exact same types of mugs, painted it the same way my kids did, cooked it, and then “threw” it into the dishwasher. It seems to have held up perfectly! Above are the before and below are the after pictures for you to decide. I will continue using this mug and update this post as time goes on in case the paint does start to come off at any point.