Tuesday, March 13, 2012

I am not a paper cup

We did this very simple project on Martha's show of stenciling on reusable "paper" cups. The cups look like an ordinary white paper cup but are actually ceramic—I'm sure you've seen them before. Anyway, they are a perfect blank slate ready for embellishment and can help in our efforts to save trees! Martha made some decorative on the show, but also artlessly stenciled the names of all her home staff on cups so that they can have their own to re-use everyday.
Martha Stewart Crafts makes an adhesive film for customized stencils. She also has a slue of ready to go stencils including a typewriter style alphabet . I customized one of the cups for Ashley in one of my favorite fonts.

 I printed the name out, taped it to the stencil film and cut each letter out with a craft knife, keeping the negative space of any letter that had it (the a & the e). I prepared the cup by cleaning it with alcohol, then peeled off the paper backing of the stencil film and adhered it to the surface. With a little stenciling pouncer, I painted over the stencil. 
Before the paint was dry, I removed the stencil. Martha Stewart craft paint made by Plaid is a multi-surface paint the will cure permanently to practically any material. For ceramic, the paint takes about 20 days to cure so that it can be washed without the paint removing. 
I put the cup aside for three weeks and now Ashley has a special coffee cup to use everyday at the office.

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