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4.5
Since I love big, bowl-like mugs, I chose these to make those DIY Paint Sharpie mugs as Christmas gifts. I ordered three sets of these, and the manufacturing was consistent between boxes. They are a nice, clean white color, and were perfect to draw and write on. They turned out great, and the size is perfect. I ended up with an extra, so I made one for myself! When I've used them, I've found them well-balanced and easy to grip-- they have really big handles. I suppose a larger mug could easily be awkward to hold, but I don't find this one to be that way at all. There's something so cozy about making a cup of tea or coffee in a mug like this.For anyone interested in what I did, I used oil-based Sharpies to make designs on the mugs, put them in the oven before heating it, set it to 420º (**see update**), left them there for an hour while checking occasionally that they didn't brown from the heat (they didn't), then turned off the oven and left them in there to cool. Oh, and when I did the designs, I wrote "hand wash only" on the inside as a precaution-- I spent too many hours on them not to! They were very popular Christmas gifts that I was proud of. :)UPDATE: Six months in, the mugs still haven't had their colors wash away, and I've been told that they have been accidentally put in the dishwasher more than a few times. I had some color changing with the original mugs; the red turned maroon, and all the blues turned green. However, I received a tip from a potter that 400º is much too hot for certain colors like sky blue to remain intact, and advised me to bake the mugs at 350º instead. That person was absolutely right, and in the last batch I made, the colors are much more vivid and I had less color changing. So, lesson learned! Keep the temperature down to 350º if color is important. I will update in the future to verify that colors stay put after being baked at this lower temperature.
