How to Make a Personalized Coffee Mug and a Coffee Break Gift Basket

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with my step-mother about the number of teachers The Boy has this year. Would you believe that he has seven?! We’re so fortunate that he attends a school which places a value on art, movement and dance, exposure to foreign language, drama, and learning a musical instrument. Having so many teachers impact his life regularly is wonderful, though it makes for a pricey teacher appreciation week!

This year, I’ve decided to gift the school with a coffee break gift basket and create a personalized coffee mug for his primary classroom teacher. I was inspired to create this gift basket by the new NESTLÉ® COFFEE-MATE® Chocolate Boutique creamers. Have you seen them in the dairy section at your local Walmart? [Use the Ibotta app to earn a .75 rebate on any 16 ounce bottle or larger NESTLÉ® COFFEE-MATE® Chocolate Boutique creamers].

How to Make a Personalized Coffee Mug

For this project, we’re going to be working with vinyl. I love making custom gifts using vinyl because it is durable and comes in a variety of colors.

Travel coffee mug
Vinyl in your favorite color
Electronic Cutting Machine {or a sharp EXACT-O knife and a permanent black marker with fine tip}

For this project, I used my Silhouette electronic cutter. {If you don’t have one, don’t worry, I’ve included instructions for you at the end!}

Open your software and create the text design you would like on your personalized coffee mug.

Pay attention to the spacing of your words as you’ll want to allow for room to affix the design to the coffee mug.

Load your vinyl into your machine and begin cutting!

Once the design is cut, remove the unwanted vinyl from around your design. This process is called weeding. One of the best tools for weeding is a pair of tweezers!

Grab your transfer paper and cut a piece large enough to transfer your vinyl design to the coffee mug.

For this project, I transferred one word at a time to the coffee mug.

Affix the transfer paper over the first word and rub well. This process is called burnishing. You can use your fingers, an old credit card or a ruler. Gently pull up on the transfer paper at an angle and transfer the design to your coffee mug.

Begin with the center of your word and burnish out toward the edges. This will prevent air bubbles in your design.

How cute is this?

Seriously, I cannot think of a single teacher that wouldn’t LOVE this! Now, let’s talk more about the coffee break gift basket.

To the basket, I added NESTLÉ® COFFEE-MATE® Liquid Coffee Creamer Salted Caramel, NESTLÉ® COFFEE-MATE® Liquid Coffee Creamer Toffee, and NESTLÉ® COFFEE-MATE® Liquid Coffee Creamer Café Mocha; I also include some instant oatmeal and homemade jelly. With three delicious flavors of NESTLÉ® COFFEE-MATE® Liquid Coffee Creamer to choose from, I know everyone’s tastebuds will be satisfied! The Chocolate Boutique flavors will turn the teacher’s regular coffee into a decadent treat!

To make this project without an electronic cutter, simply create the phrase you would like to use in a word processing program then print it out onto white paper. Trace the phrase using a black permanent marker. Cut around the image to trim off excess white paper. Tape the design to the top of the vinyl and cut it out using an Exact-O knife. Be very careful, those knives are sharp! And they can cut you! Once you have your design cut out, follow the steps above to affix it to the coffee mug.

Which NESTLÉ® COFFEE-MATE® Liquid Coffee Creamer flavor are you most looking forward to trying?