Welcome back to the craft room and today’s How To Sublimate A Ceramic Mug post and YouTube video. I am continuing my family projects with a coffee mug for my great nephew. I have a YouTube video that you can watch showing the process, or you can stick around and read all about it here on the blog. If you do watch the video, please consider hitting the Like button and subscribing to the channel. If you also ring the bell, you will be notified every time I upload a new video.
The Highland Cow Image
My nephew is a great kid, a little bit wild, but I love him dearly. When I heard he liked Highland Cows, I headed off to Creative Fabrica and found the perfect bundle, Funny Highland Cows. All of the images in the set fit this young man’s personality perfectly, so it was difficult to settle on one image.
After finding the image, I wanted to perfectly center it on both sides of the mug. In order to do that, I created a template for myself in Canva for 15 oz Cricut Mugs. It measures 9.5” long by 4.25” high. Because there is about half an inch on either side of the handle that cannot be sublimated, I gave myself plenty of room on the template. The gray boxes are the perfect location for a single image while the dashed lines ensure it is in the center. One thing to always keep in mind, 15 oz mugs are not created equally. If I purchase a different brand, I will have to measure it to ensure this template will work. If not, then I will have to create an additional template for that brand of mug.
After my images are placed in the template, I move this layer to the back and remove the guide lines. To make my life easier, I do print the outer dashed lines. This allows me to keep the image centered on the mug. To print my sublimation images, I add them to a Word document before sending it to my Epson SureColor F170 printer. After printing onto A-sub Sublimation paper, I use my Tim Holtz Rotary Trimmer to cut the print down to size. Because I left the dashed lines on the print, I always make sure to cut all of that off so it isn’t transferred to my project.
The Vevor Auto Mug Press
When doing sublimation projects, any type of movement is your enemy. To ensure this image did not move, I wrapped it as tightly as possible and secured it with my clear heat resistant tape. The next step is to wrap the mug with a piece of white butcher paper. This will protect the mug press from any ink that may bleed through the sublimation paper.
To sublimate this mug, I am using the Vevor Auto Mug Press. This press comes pre-programmed to perfectly sublimate 11 and 15 oz ceramic mugs. However, if you find your brand of sublimation mugs need a temperature or time adjustment, it is very easy to change that. I did not need to adjust those settings for my 15 oz. Cricut mugs. My machine took about 5 minutes to fully sublimate today’s Funny Highland Cow mug design.
The Finished Sublimated Ceramic Mug
I absolutely love how this mug turned out!! It is so difficult to photograph coffee mugs because of the glare, but here it is! the colors are perfect! The browns are rich and vibrant and the black is a true black.
Later that afternoon I decided to make a couple more mugs, one for myself and one for my husband. The Poppy image can be found on Creative Fabrica and the military emblems for the front and back of my husband’s mug were found on Google. The first mug took a little over 5 minutes to fully sublimate. Although I allowed the machine to fully heat up before the first mug, the machine finished the sublimation process after a little more than 4 minutes for the second mug. The colors were just as beautiful and vibrant as the first mug in that run.
One Little Oops
All of the mugs created today came out beautifully! I did have one oopsie though. In the process of creating a fourth mug, there was a major fail. I’m not sure if it was my fault or if there was an issue with the blank itself. Either way, the handle snapped off. With any type of press, if the handle is positioned too close to the side of the machine, there is a chance it could be damaged from the pressure. This was a valuable learning experience for me, and one I won’t soon forget.
Thank you for joining me for today’s How To Sublimate A Ceramic Mug post. I had so much fun creating this Funny Highland Cow mug for my great nephew and can’t wait to see his reaction! Let me know down in the comments which design you liked best. Do you prefer funny animals, floral images, or are you or a loved one proud to show off your military careers? Check out my other sublimation projects by clicking this link; Sublimation. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I will see you back in the craft room real soon!