The Truth About DIY Gold Sharpie Mugs

You may have seen the gold Sharpie mug tutorials floating around the webosphere. Seems like such a fun idea, right? Easy way to cuten up some plain mugs. Since I have some plain white mugs I thought I'd give it a try. Let me just state that I get discouraged by DIY tutorials that don't yield professional looking results. Sure, anyone can fake a photo or make something look good on screen, but I want things that are actually going to look good and be worth my time and money.

So I followed the instructions carefully. I colored my mugs (round one showed streaky marker lines so I had to bake and then do a second layer). And baking them took away the shiny gold sheen and left them a dull brassy gold. But I could live with that.

As the mugs sat on my counter top for a while awaiting their photography session, one got a smudge of butter on it. And whadya know! The gold wiped clean off! (So why did I bother baking it? I assumed that would create some sort of permanence). But on the up side, you could do these for a party and then just wipe them clean when you are done, using a little grease or butter! But I'm not sure it's worth baking them. And it's definitely not permanent.