This has been an experiment on how to decorate Dollar Tree mugs.

I’ve decorated mugs in a couple of ways. For example, I used Dollar Tree mugs and permanent adhesive vinyl. That works great. I have washed these By Hand numerous times and they are still going strong.

But…..put them in the dishwasher and they become a mangled mess. Washing by hand is fine, but one of these days someone is going to forget and put them in the dishwasher and all will be lost.

So, I went back to researching. This time I read and watched videos on what others had done. I finally chose to follow this method on my Dollar Tree mugs.

1. Of course, the first thing to do is always clean well and then wipe down with rubbing alcohol to get rid of any oils.

2. I make stencils from contact paper, which does well as it fits so tightly to the mug and is easy to remove. For this leaf pattern (purchased from the Silhouette store) I made my stencil, put it on the mug and colored it in with a brown Sharpie paint pen. It has to be the oil-based paint pen. The regular Sharpie permanent ink one won’t work.

3. Then I let it dry for 72 hours. Once dry I put it on parchment paper on a cookie sheet in a cold oven. Set the temp. For 250 degrees F turned it on and baked the cup for 20minutes. I then turned the oven off and left it in there untouched for an hour or so, until it was cool to the touch.

My mug turned out great. I experimented with it and washed it with hot soap and water by hand several times. It came out perfect every time! Yay! A success for creating painted mugs to hand wash!

But! What if I forgot or if someone buys a mug from me and they forget I said to hand wash?

So, now it was time to possibly say goodbye to my cute fall coffee mug as it might get ruined in the dishwasher.

I did make sure I put it in the top rack. When it came out, it was still in one piece and looked great. However, a change has taken place.

The leaf was now lighter, the yellow tones looked gray and the mug itself took on a creamier color.

It still looks great! I’m happy it is not ruined…but…I was a little disappointed in the color change.

I did learn that if I do want to sell these, I will need to run them through the dishwasher before I take a photo due to the color change.

Here’s a before and after. It is a noticeable difference.

Now, I’m going to be trying something else. I learned, in my research, that Mod Podge makes a dishwasher safe sealer. I’m going to try that next and will let you know what happens.

Be watching this space. Also, be sure to follow my blog to be notified when I post something new!