So since I'm a bit of a "place for everything and everything in it's place" kind of girl, one of the things I wanted in the office was lots of storage for all the little things that you need when you have both a writer and an architect in residence. Mostly this involves pens. we have lots of pens. Actually, we always start out with a lot of pens, but since we also have kids, they seem to vanish regularly. But pens are, in general, pretty important around here.
These mugs were something I picked up at Salvation Army whilehunting for teacups for Evie's party invites (I'll show you those next week!) and I thought that they would work in the kitchen or in the office, or maybe both, and snatched them up. When I got home I decided that perhaps have four different kinds of mugs in the kitchen was too much (big tea cups, little tea cups, mugs and these...humm, probably overkill) so I stuck them in the "to do" box and forgot about them for a week or so.
Earlier this week I picked up some inkjet decal paper from the hobby store to get to work on those invitations using this technique and thought, humm, maybe I could do something with those mugs while I'm at it. Actually I think the little organization bell went off in my brain. It's like the Bat Signal for organizers.
Alert! Alert! Labeling Possibility Approaching! Take Action Now, OCD Girl!
The invitations will be along the same lines, except with party information on them of course, not labels. Because that would be a little weird. Although maybe not, when you see what the party will be. Let's just say there will (if I can figure out how to write with frosting) be a food that says "Eat Me!" on it
If you haven't had a chance to play with Inkjet Decal Paper, you should pick up a pack. It has endless possibilities. It's really made for model making so you can create little decals for cars and buildings and things like that for your tiny little towns. But really, you can print anything on it and then put what you printed on, well, just about anything flat. Think of the labeling possibilities alone! But really, I think this stuff is crazy cool, next we're going to play around with using it for temporary tattoos...we'll see how that goes. If it works, my kids may spend their summer covered in playmobil inspired tribal markings.
The paper looks very much like good photo paper and prints about the same. I've seen a pour on fixative online but I've been using a spray version which I suspect is just a clear coat polyurethane. Once the images is printed, sprayed with fixative and dried, cut it out, as close to the edges of the image as possible and drop it into a bowl of water.
After about 30 seconds the image can be slipped off the paper backing and onto whatever you want. I like to spray the whole thing with another coat of fixative just to be safe.
You can't put anything with the decals in the dishwasher but you can wash by hand so it's a fun project for things like mugs and glasses. But like I said, the labeling possibilities go on and on. It makes me almost giddy, like when I had a label maker and labeled everything in the house. (and I mean EVERYTHING!)
