It's a stressful time of year so I decided to whip up these cute little monogramed Sharpie mugs as gifts for my teammates. I had seen similar ones on Pinterest and wanted to give it a try. I read up on the best way to do it, and here is what I came up with. I started with cheap Dollar Tree mugs.

I gave them a quick wash, and added a letter sticker, also from Dollar Tree. The whole project cost about four dollars, minus the K-cups I tossed in at the end.

The next step was to cover the entire area around the letter with a Sharpie dots.

When I had the amount of coverage I wanted I waited for several minutes to allow the marker to dry before peeling off the sticker so it wouldn't smear.

I did the same with each mug and then placed them in the oven at 425 degrees for 30 minutes. Do not preheat the oven, the gradual heating helps the glaze on the mugs to melt and bond with the marker. After thirty minutes, turn off the oven, but do not take the mugs out until they are fairly cool. This also helps make the designs permanent.

The finished product turned out great! The blue and the green faded a little, but they look fine, and the red (which many sites claim turns yellow) and purple look amazing!

These are not dishwasher safe!

For a finishing touch I added K-cups, tea bags, cider packets or hot cocoa packages depending on the recipient.

These would also make a great parent, admin or secretary gift.