decorating ceramics

In the run up to Christmas and end of the school year I'm always looking for different gifts for Sam to make for his teachers and classroom assistants. This year we decided to use the ever popular pinterest pin of decorating mugs with sharpies and then baking them to make them permanent. We made 5 mugs in total using this technique. Two for Sam's school gifts, one for Sam's Dad and one each for my friend and her husband who are Sam's honorary Aunt and Uncle.

Here is Tracy Sam's honorary aunt opening her mug.

But sadly after the first wash the pens started to come off. I checked back on the internet and it said to bake hotter for longer. I tried this but no improvement. Then Sam had a decorate your own mug kit for Christmas so we tried again. 

He worked really hard making this mug for his Dad

On the back of his mug he has drawn some different foods as he wanted to copy my plates I was making. 

I have started slimming world again and D finds it hard to remember what I can and can't eat so I made these plates to help him remember how much of what foods I can eat. 

Sadly these too will not stand up to even the gentlest of washings. 

So the mugs are now being used as a toothbrush pot and a pencil holder and the better of the 2 plates is on a stand in the kitchen to use as a reference guide rather than an eating off plate. Never mind we had fun making them, even if we can't use them for their intended purpose.