Steve’s birthday and Father’s day always fall within the same week, and I am sad to confess that he tends to get short-changed with a combined Happy-Father’s-Birthday-Day celebration. Add to the scheduling issues the fact that we are often traveling around that time of year, and sometimes the best I can do is help the kids make some creative cards for dad.

This year, I am planning ahead just a little more, and we have two separate (gasp!) projects to make. Of course, I love doing something handmade, especially from the kids. But I also wanted to make sure that our gifts were practical and I think our projects- mugs and aprons – are perfect!

This morning, the boys and I decorated some coffee cups for Father’s Day – or his birthday – I haven’t decided which is which. This is a fitting gift, because a) Steve’s ability to function as a human being is closely tied to caffeine and b) we keep breaking our cups, so we need more. Not glamorous, but true.

• Pebeo Vitrea 160 Glossy Markers
• White Ceramic Mugs

Being an avid fan of Pinterest, I have of course seen the posts about decorating mugs with Sharpies. On closer reading of reviews, however, this might not be as durable as I ideally want. I did, however, find recommendations for these Pebeo Vitrea 160 Glossy Markers. They are meant for glass but also work on ceramics. The colors are very bright, and the markers are easy to use. The one thing I would mention is that these are really paint pens, meaning the paint can splatter, so wear a smock or something you don’t mind getting a few spots on. (Yes, I speak from experience. My cream-colored blouse was an unlucky wardrobe choice, but fortunately the spots are very small.)

We each decorated one of these White Ceramic Mugs and wrote our names and the date on the bottom.

I’ll be baking these to set the color when Steve is at work one day, and I look forward to surprising him with them in a couple of weeks!

“Jewels”