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It rarely gets cold here but on the first day that it did I found myself with a mug of something warm almost all day long. And if you wonder what I mean by cold that’s a rainy 45-ish here in South Texas which would be considered quite pleasant in some of the areas where you’re reading from right now :)
I have found myself truly missing the cold weather and occasional snow. It sure didn’t hurt that I worked from home and I just watched the snow fall and pile up from the comfort of my office desk situated perfectly on top of a heat vent. Now my Mimmie tried to remind me, when I said I wished I had the snow that she had that I needed to remember all of the times my electricity went out and how miserable that business was.
But, as I write this the chilly weather has passed and it’s currently 74° but I’m still sipping on my wonderful, amazing coffee, or as I like to think of it, my daily hug in a mug :)
Know a lover of coffee, tea, or hot cocoa? This is a lovely little gift that you can easily add to. Perhaps a sleeve of fancy hot cocoa or tasty, homemade stirring spoons, yum! Let’s get after it, shall we?
For this project you will need:
- Solid color mugs
- Metallic gold heat transfer vinyl
- Craft/mini iron or regular iron
- Towel
- Silhouette cutting machine
- Cut file
Appropriately size and cut your “Hug in a Mug” file out of glitter or foil HTV and weed the design. I went with Siser Easyweed Metallic from Expressions Vinyl. p.s. with a little bit of testing I found that plain ol’ smooth HTV doesn’t stay on after running through the dishwasher.
Wash your mug with hot, soapy water, dry it super well and then go over it with rubbing alcohol to make sure it is especially clean.
Depending on the curve of your mug you might be able to smack down the vinyl straight onto the mug. Mine was very, very curved so I had to cut the top and bottom text apart, and then trim my bottom piece between the “u” and the “g” so that it would appropriately follow the shape of the mug.
Using a mini iron, or a regular iron apply high heat with significant pressure to the HTV. The mini iron takes a bit longer but it is easier to see how and where you’re applying the heat. A large iron, like you use on clothes, can get hotter and therefore work faster but it’s more difficult with the curve of the mug to tell exactly where you’re applying the heat.
Working with a hand towel is advisable as the mug can and will get very, very hot. Use the towel, when necessary, to protect your hands from the heat. And please, please be smart about this… hot things burn and that means you need to pay close attention to what you are doing.
As you go you’ll need to peel up the plastic to be able to tell where the HTV has successfully bonded. Be very careful to not pull with too much force or you might mess up your design. Easy does it, Margaret.
Even when an area has successfully adhered do NOT completely remove the clear plastic sheet from the HTV. If you do and accidentally touch that uncovered area with your iron it’s gonna be a real mess when the vinyl melts onto your iron (trust me).
And in case you’re wondering who my cat craft assistant was for this project, it was Maybelline :)
Once the vinyl properly bonds to the mug in all places you can remove the clear plastic and bask in the glory that is your new, amazing coffee mug. What? Was it supposed to be a gift? No worries, you can always make another! :)
