Mothers’ Day Crafting with Olivia

For Mothers’ Day this year, I wanted to craft something with Olivia for the special moms in our lives. We agreed on creating hand painted mugs that we could personalize for her grandmothers as well as her Godmother and her sister’s Godmother. The craft was super easy and we completed it in an afternoon. Once I explained the process to Olivia, she was able to add the paint herself. I helped her by holding the mug and making sure she didn’t paint outside of the designated area. We both had a lot of fun working on this project. Check out our video in which we painted one of the mugs for my mom. All of the supplies and steps are listed below the video.

We used a plain ceramic mug like this one: http://amzn.to/2q0TT2N
We chose three of Martha Stewart’s Satin Acrylic paints (There are tons of colors to choose from. Olivia chose Snow Pea, Magenta Rose and Beach Glass): http://amzn.to/2q1TCgn
We applied the paint with these pouncers from Martha Stewart. I like that these are different sizes and you can take the sponges out for cleaning: http://amzn.to/2pxNzgs
We chose script letters for our project, but any letter stickers will do: http://amzn.to/2r02HEi

Step 1: Apply the sticker letters. I didn’t figure out until the second mug that we should put the letters facing out on the mug if you hold it with your right hand. Oops. Centering them is tricky. I suggest starting with the center letter in the center of the space you want the writing to show and then applying them to the right and then the left of the center letter.

Step 2: Dab a pouncer in the first paint color and apply it to the mug in a random pattern. Focus on the lower 2/3 of the mug. Allow the paint to dry before applying the next color.

Step 3: Dab another pouncer in the second color and apply it to the mug so that you fill in some of the white spots while layering the colors a little bit. By the end of the project, you want all the sticker letters to be covered with paint. Allow the paint to dry before applying the next color.

Step 4: Dab the third pouncer (we used varying sizes) into the paint and apply it to the mug, completely filling in the white spots, layering over the other colors, and adding some floating circles to the top of the pattern as well. Allow the paint to dry.

Step 5: Place mug inside a cool oven. Set the oven on 360 degrees Farenheit for 30 minutes. Keep the mug in the oven for the warm up and cool down so that they do not shatter when they hit a temperature change.

Let me know if you try this craft and how it goes!