This week is going to be a rather exciting one! If you haven’t read about it in my last few posts, I’m getting married on Friday! It’s going to be very low key, because honestly we’re very low key people, and we couldn’t imagine ourselves throwing a traditional wedding. It has proven to be a good decision because like crazy people we decided to plan it in a span of 2 and a half months so low key was really the best only option.

Long story short, I might be a little bit MIA here this week. I pretty much never go for more than a few days without posting, so no worries I didn’t get kidnapped! I’m just busy as all hell. Even a small wedding can make a girl pretty busy, especially since most of our guests are traveling here from out of state. And in lieu of a big crazy bachelorette thing my lovely lovely friend is coming with me to a spa where we are going to try a flotation tank for the first time! I can’t think of a better way to clear the head on a busy wedding week. She’s the best.

Anywho, I have been doing a lot of the preparation for the wedding DIY style, which helps the wallet but NOT so much the schedule. I did remember to photograph some of it though so today I’m going to show you how I made DIY Mugs for the wedding favors! It’s not a beauty DIY, but hey . . .whatever right?

They’re pretty cute and I’m really excited about how they came out. You can make a bunch of these and give them out as favors, or make a set of like 3 or 4 and keep them for yourself. Either way they’re pretty fun and easy.

The trickiest part of the whole thing is finding so many mugs at a reasonable price. I searched the internet very carefully before making this decision and the best bet was actually to get 30 plain mugs that were on super duper sale from Crate&Barrel. They don’t have those exact ones anymore (someone musta bought them all LOL) but they have a ton of sale options. You can also search for discount mug sellers online, or on amazon, or even check the clearance section at target.

My Fiance and I decided that since he had a few days off we would try to go to a little woodsy cabin and relax for a few days. My version of relaxation is apparently decorating thirty coffee mugs in one afternoon, but what can I say? I have a hard time sitting still. So there you have my giant Crate&Barrel box of mugs on the porch in the woods, I highly recommend this type of setting for crafting. it was a very pleasant afternoon.

With 30 mugs I decided to come up with ten designs and do three of each. Some of the designs I got directly off of pinterest, others I made up on the fly, and even changed a little as I went along. The point is, if you are doing a whole bunch, plan it out in a notebook or on a piece of paper first so you can start off with a definitive direction.

I’ve seen some DIYs say that you can use sharpie to decorate the mugs and if you bake them it won’t come off, but the reviews don’t really seem to be so great. I decided the best course of action was to order some porcelain markers. They work just like sharpies and they aren’t THAT much more expensive so I feel like it’s worth it. Whether it’s you or a guest who ends up with the mug you’ll want it to last though a few washings at least! I ordered two of the porcelain markers from Amazon. One marker got me through about fifteen mugs so two was the perfect amount for me, but you can buy according to how many mugs you’re going to be making.

I HIGHLY highly recommend testing the marker on paper first like I did above to see how much comes out before you start drawing. Making mistakes like a huge blob can be fixed if you wipe it off really quickly, but it can get messy. I was also being very careful because I literally bought the minimum number of mugs for my guests with no room for mistakes. Either I like to live on the edge or I’m cheap, I’ll let you decide.

The next step is just start decorating. I got really in the zone and I found it to be really fun. As you can see by my splotchy notebook I stopped frequently to make sure the amount of porcelain paint/ink whatever this stuff is, was flowing from the marker.

In total the decorating process took me about four hours. So about 7.5 mugs per hour. Thats not too bad. Some designs took longer than others, obviously. But all in all it went a lot faster than I expected
It’s also nice to have a furry helper with you through the whole process.

Once they were dry I packed them all carefully back into their big ass box and let them sit for a few days. I think the directions I read online said 72 hours, I left them longer than that though because it took a while to get them home to a proper oven.

Once they were home I simply baked them for 30 minutes at 350º. They didn’t change in the oven or after drying for that matter, they pretty much looked exactly the same as when I first drew on the designs. Supposedly they will be dishwasher safe now but I guess we won’t really find that out for sure until after the wedding.

The porcelain markers were a good call though because they look glossy and dark and WAY more professional than doing them with a sharpie.

Because they’re going to be wedding favors I figured I better put some goodies inside. I found some black organza satchels on amazon and filled each one with some chocolate covered espresso beans. Get it . . coffee mugs, espresso beans? Aha, so clever.

You can find chocolate covered espresso beans online in bulk. I just bought mine from Trader Joe’s though. I took about 8 containers to fill the 30 mugs so it works out to around the same price as buying in bulk. The checkout lady must have thought I had some REALLY serious PMS.

So that’s that. Feel free to copy my designs, or make up better ones and the show me pictures of them, or just buy that 5lb bag of chocolate espresso beans and eat it under a blankey while watching Netflix. That last option is probably the most fun but will result in zero DIY mugs so make your decisions accordingly 😉