Easy Steps in Making a Photo Mug
A photo mug is one of the most memorable gifts that you would give to your special someone. It is highly personalized and the recipient of the gift will have a great time using the mug as this is fashioned after their preferences or their photo.
The good news is that you don’t even have to spend hundreds of dollars to create a good photo mug. If you have a computer, a printer and a few extra dollars you should be able to create a good looking photo mug in no time. You might even have this as a business if you can have a good start-up capital for photo mugs.
The Right Transfer Paper
The heart and soul of a successful photo mug is the transfer paper. This is probably the tool in your photo mug process that should never be compromised. The right transfer paper would mean that you will be able to easily transfer the photos to the mug. Printing is a lot easier since well known transfer papers could easily go through most types of printers. A good and high quality transfer paper could be a little bit expensive but that wouldn’t matter if you really want to have a good photo mug.
Selecting the Right Mug
Think of your mug as a canvass. Your canvass should be clean and should have a smooth surface so that it could easily receive the transferred photo. It is preferable that you get a white mug so that your photo would be clearer. Other colors are advisable if you wanted to be daring and would have a radical look in your photo mug.
The size of mug should also be considered. A good sized mug should be enough with regular photos but if you want to have something special, look for larger mugs for better photos.
Printers and Ink
A printer is also an important equipment to consider, but as long as you have colored printer, you should be able to print without any problem. What you should check before you start printing is the volume of ink available for printing. You don’t want to have a photo that will only have two colors which will really look bad in any given situation. Before you print on the transfer paper, practice printing on a regular paper while taking note on the right side so that you don’t waste on transfer paper by printing on the wrong side of the transfer paper.
The Baking Process
The most important component of your photo mug process is the transfer paper but the “baking” process is the most important step in creating a good photo mug. Transfer papers for t-shirts will only require you to iron the area where you transferred the photo. But since you can’t do that in a mug, you need to place the mug in an oven. You need to slowly bake your mug in an oven so that the graphics will be carefully printed on the mug. Most transfer papers will include the required heat to properly imprint the photo in the mug.