Ginger Magician

In October 2010 my boyfriend asked me to make his best friend a mug incorporating his nicknames: 'Ginger Magician' and 'Magic Man' so I decked him out with a cape, top hat, wand and rabbit and this is what he got...

Ginger...

...Magician

Magic Man

"It's up there as one of my favourite birthday presents ever. The photo doesn't do it justice." Matt Sealby - 29th October 2010

Tinkerdumbbell

My boyfriend's sister saw the mug I made for him and asked me to make one for her new boyfriend who had a thing for bodybuilding, Tinkerbell and dressing up.

Using a phrase they used with each other and altering it slightly to allow for a hot drink pun (rariTEA and infiniTEA) I used the magazine cut out technique again as it looked much more professional than my freehand writing from earlier mugs.

Mr Light

In September 2010 my boyfriend had just started working as a Learning Manager (a sort of substitute teacher) at a local school where he was hoping to go on to become a P.E. teacher. His birthday landed in September too so it was the perfect opportunity to mark both his new career and his having aged another year. 

On the mug I wanted him to be teaching a lesson so looked up some equations online and came across one for 'orifice gas flow' which is perfect for Steven given his love of breaking wind. I wrote the equation out on a white board with his stood in front of it and had some of his favourite sporting implements around the other side of the mug to keep the P.E. teaching dream alive. I finished it off by cutting letters out of magazines (had some funny looks when doing this at work) and sticking them on to form his new moniker 'Mr Light'.

His and Hers

Nine months passed and not mug in sight. September 2010 and my boyfriend's birthday was coming up - I had the idea to put a real life picture of his face on a mug. But his friends were getting married first so I took that idea and made them his and hers mugs. On Jane's there was a picture of her with heart shaped thought-bubbles coming from her head with pictures of Gav inside. Underneath in cut-out letters it said 'I love my hubby'. And vice versa. On the handles it said 'Jane 4 Gav/Gav 4Jane'.

The Fail Whale

Christmas 2009 and yet again I gifted Vic with a mug. This time a Twitter themed one due to her love of the social networking site. Her boyfriend had requested a "Fail Whale" mug so I made one for each of them. I painted it free hand and changed the wording slightly to "Vic/Tim is over capacity. Too many twits [I knew she'd be using the mug at work and annoyances in the workplace can often be calmed with a cup of tea]. Please wait a moment [until I've calmed down] and try again."

The Melting Mug

After seeing the MJ mug I made for Vic, my mum asked me to paint a mug for her friend's birthday. She sent me a few pictures of said friend and I spent an ENTIRE day trying to get her face right. Once I was satisfied I thought it would make sense to put gloss over the top, which, to my horror, caused the paint to melt. This was my first time using porcelain paints so I hadn't really perfected an kind of technique but that did not stop me from taking the outcome quite badly. I felt like I couldn't possibly go on but the desperation I felt probably had something to do with the fact I'd been feeling poorly all day and could have spent my hours in bed instead of slaving over what would end up destroyed! After taking a week to recover from all the dramatics I started from scratch and managed to avoid disaster.

The giftee in question arranges fire walks and my mum requested that I include the quote, "A woman is like a teabag, you never know how strong she is until she's in hot water" so I put some lovely flames down the handle and decided to paint her sat in a pot of boiling water because there is nothing that brings me more joy in life than being literal (for evidence of this please take me to a night club, listen to the lyrics of the song being played and watch the dance moves that seep from my body.)

The original actually looked more like her (pre-melting) than the second one but let's not nitpick!

The Mug That Started It All...

Having bought my friend Vic a much mooned over Princess Diana mug on her previous birthday I was now aware that following Michael Jackson's recent death she was in need of a memorial mug in his honour. Funds being low I decided to make use of a Christmas present I'd been given a couple of years previously that had been gathering dust under my bed: an Art Attack mug painting set. On prising open the paints I realised they were well and truly past their use by date and rock hard. So off I trotted to the art shop in search of a permanent porcelain pen - the staff told me a permanent marker would do the the trick. I bought their spiel and their pen and on commencing the memorial mug realised this would have to be an ornamental mug due to the drawing being easy to scratch off. But she liked it all the same and so began a search for actual porcelain paints. I found what I was looking for and now have the materials I need to paint USABLE mugs. Hurrah!

This is Vic's mug so just...

BEAT IT!

"The most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Ever. She is an actual genius!!"
Victoria Thompson - 16th July 2009