Teacher’s Gift: Cup of Sharpies

Are you looking for an end of the year teacher’s gift that is useful, looks great, and is easy to boot?  Let me introduce you to the Cup ‘o Sharpies.

Let’s face it–most teachers probably have enough “cute” to last them a lifetime.  This gift is useful (everyone needs to stay hydrated–and what teacher ever has too many Sharpies?) and personalized (with a bit of help from a paint pen), without being “cute”.  I think any teacher would be happy to receive this on the last day of school!

I originally saw this idea on Pinterest with a disposable cup (and a few more pens).  When Walmart asked me to create a teacher’s gift I decided to update the basic concept with a nice reusable, sweat proof tumbler and cut back a bit on the number of pens.  And then to make it a big more personal I wanted to add their name (so no one else in the teacher’s lounge would accidentally walk off with their glass).

The supplies from Walmart are simple–some Aladdin To Go Sweatproof Double Insulated Tumblers, Sharpie 5pks, and a couple of Painters pens!

I don’t have the best calligraphy in the world so I decided to print out the teacher’s names in a large font in order to “trace” it with the paint pens.  I taped them inside the glass with painters tape.  It was a bit harder than I thought–as you can see in that bottom right photo, due to the double thickness of plastic with air in between for insulation, the surface you are painting on is floating quite a bit above the paper you tape inside.  Going slowly and using a large fond without much detail is definitely the way to go!  The gold paint pen gave me great coverage, but with the blue paint pen I did a light first coat, let it dry and then painted over it again.

I was very happy with how these cups came out.  They are obviously hand lettered, but not amateur looking.   Our school year doesn’t end for another couple of weeks–but even if the end of your kids year is racing up on you, you still have time to make a few of these gifts for the teachers who spent so much time working with your kids this year!

****This is a sponsored post****

Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, I’ve received product samples and compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.