Making it my own: Tea Time

One of my most favorite things in the morning is relaxing on the couch, enjoying a nice warm cup of tea, while watching a chipper Lil E play with his toys. I would love to have one of those fancy oversized mugs to enjoy my hot beverage in but I haven't found one to my liking yet. We do, however, have a large mug that I try to hide from guests by pushing as far back in the cabinet as possible. It is pretty perfect for my morning tea but it is unsightly ugly. Now I do not blame Fiancé for having this ugly monster of a cup as I am pretty positive he did not and would not buy it for himself. I do blame the person who bought it and left it in his house for having horrible taste.
Anyways...
Today I decided to make this mug my own. I already have enamel paint so why not put it to good use?
Oh, BTW sweetie, I'm going to paint your cup...hope you don't mind!

Here's what I did:



Ugly isn't it!?

I cleaned the mug really good and made sure there was no soap residue left behind. Then I grabbed my paints and a foam brush and started covering the mug.


I had to coat it 3 or 4 times. I let it dry after each coat.

Ok I lied. I am impatient and I used my hair dryer between coats to dry it faster.

 

Goodbye ugly snowman!!

Once the basecoat was completely dry (again speeding up the process with my hair dryer) I got to work being all artistic and such. I used black and pink enamel paints, a small paint brush, and a cotton swab.

Done, Done, Done!
I let this dry and popped it in a cold oven at 325 for 30min then let it cool completely. The directions are right on the bottles of paint for this step. Dishwasher and food safe! Now I have a mug to call my own for my morning relax time with Lil E.

 



 

DIY Painted Glassware

So last weekend I decided I wanted to do an art project.
Then I remembered I'm not very creative so I scoured the internet looking for ideas. I wanted to do something that seemed easy and was cheap as I didnt want to spend a ton of money on a complete failure of a project. I found a TON of websites about handpainting wine glasses. I thought to myself, "I'm artistic I can do this!" and "I oil paint on canvus, how much more difficult could this possibly be!?"
*SIGH*
I realized with my first brush stroke that I have unusually shakey hands and cannot draw a striaght line for the life of me. This is very bad for detail work and fine lines. The following is my not so handy work:

SUPPLIES:

I taped my picture to the inside of the glass and (tried to) trace the picture with the enamel paint. After cussing numorous times and wiping it clean to start over twice I finally (sort of) got to right. Once it dried I followed the directions on the paint bottle which was to put the glass in a COLD oven and heat to 350 degrees. Bake for 30 min and then let the glass cool off in the oven. These are now dishwasher safe :)







THE FINISHED PRODUCTS:

They are Flip Flops...Not my best artwork for sure