Data Comparisons

The Lukewarmer Mug Arrived!

27 Comments

My lukewarmer mug arrived:

Figure 1: Mug Arrived
Figure 1: Mug Arrived

As you can see, while hopped up on cough medicine, I crocheted some baby booties. They are for my neighbor’s new born daughter. (I talked to Julie last month and didn’t even notice she was pregnant! )

The mug looks beautiful. Based on the image at CafePress, I was afraid the text would be unreadable. Mine looks quite nice. Still, I thought it could be even better, so, I decided to increase the font size for the title and axis labels.

Here’s a copy of what I uploaded:

Image Sent To CafePress
Image Sent To CafePress; (click for larger.)

If you want a mug: Here’s The Blackboard, my CafePress.com store.

Things I’ve learned

Various readers suggested spiffy products that I can’t offer at CafePress.com. Based on their suggestions, I thought various climate-blog addicts might want to design their own mugs spanning the full range of climate blog idealogies, ranging from.. oh… Hansen of Borg to images of burning hot planets.

Since my head was all stuffy, I became curious and decided spend some time learning about how these dishwasher safe one-off type mugs are made. I discovered:

  1. Printing method: dye sublimation. This results in a really nice smooth looking cup surface. Here’s a video showing how an image being applied from a dye template:
  2. Initial investment: $500-$1500. The person making them needs to buy an appropriate printer, sublimation inks, software, heat tape, either cactus wraps or a mug press and an oven. Once you have all these, you buy a case of sublimation mugs.
  3. Range of products: Large.Mugs with images that appear only when heated can be made. The mugs themselves are black when cool; they turn white and reveal the image when hot. Dye sublimation also works on t-shirts with high polyester content, caps, tiles, key chains, license plate frames and a variety of other materials.
  4. Not for occasional use.If you own the printer, it’s advised you run it at least once a week. If not, the inks dry in the jet feeds for the printer.

Based on all the above: If you have all this stuff and sell lots of mugs, you can make a nice profit per mug. High school booster clubs might enjoy doing this to stock stores. However, if you are are only going to sell 10 mugs, CafePress is a much better route. (In case you are wondering, I set the markup using CafePress’s automatic feature picking “medium” for the markup. So, I make roughly $2. CafePress deals with all the printing, shipping, billing, salestax, and has invested the money in the ink, equipment and space to store the equipment. )

I told Jim that if I sell 100 mugs, I’ll buy equipment. I figure 100 mugs is would suggest there is enough demand to make owning equipment worthwhile. I’d figure out how to let blog visitors upload images of their choice and I’d offer to just print the transfers and mail them. People could then buy the cactus wraps, packs of mugs and make their own mugs. (Heck, I figure kids would enjoy making the mugs.)

Otherwise, if (as I expect) I sell roughly 10 of these, it’s one design at a time at CafePress.com. If you want this month’s mug: lukewarmer mug.

27 thoughts on “The Lukewarmer Mug Arrived!”

  1. I’ll bet you get 100 orders.

    I still wonder if the enormous hassle of doing it yourself makes it worth your while.

    (Of course, if you are doing it for fun, that is an entirely different matter).

  2. Those booties are so cute! They remind me of by babies, now grown with their own….

    I ordered a mug and will display it prominently at meetings to see what reaction, if any , I receive.

  3. Jason–
    I kind of enjoy doing hands on stuff. I hate paper work! For me, the hassle is more the taking orders, boxing, sending out, getting a tax payer ID number, keeping records. It’s all easy, but … PITA.

    I like the fun of making things more. I tend to be fussy with crafty things too. (Plus, did you see the quality with the cactus wraps? I could make even niftier mugs!)

    Still, if it’s lots of mugs, it would be worth getting around the CafePress limitation of 1 of each item type in the store. (So, I can have 1 normal mug, 1 stein, 1 large mug etc.) Also, they charge enough markup that it could be worth the hassle (given that I sort of like crafty things.)

  8. Jack–
    I’ve knit mug cozies! But… they take too long to make any money on!

    UC and Martin– I suspect if I manage to sell 100 and then buy the equipment, there will be people wanting all sorts of designs! It turns out you can use dye sublimation on all sorts of things.

    Why do I suspect there is a bigger market for lukewarmer/ skeptic/ stone-cold denialist objects than for hell-has-no fury alarmist items?

  9. Barbara–
    I’ve already given the booties to my neighbor. I told the people at my knitting blog that I’m going to modify the pattern for the pink booties. The method of construction is inefficient and offends my engineering sensibilities. (There is no reason why it should be organized in a way that ends up requiring sewing three seams, anchoring multiple ends of yarn, and crocheting into more foundation chains than necessary. Identical looking booties could be made without all those stupid steps.)

  11. Martin– I thought I just wrapped in html to make it show. They must be blocking display at other sites. (Some sites do that using htaccess.)

  12. lucia (Comment#10786) February 25th, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    Martin– I thought I just wrapped in html to make it show. They must be blocking display at other sites. (Some sites do that using htaccess.)

    That’s possible as it’s a public site for upload of graphics by web users. I’m a member and never upload offensive material. If you know of another graphic host then I would use it. For the time being I’m stuck with what I have.

    Fond regards.
    MartinGAtkins.

  13. Martin–Check to see if they have some sort of privacy setting. Most those hosts are set up to let you show off your images.

  14. I (was forced to) knit in school. After a full semester I managed 4 rows of 20 knots (or whatever it is called). The piece was so hard that you could not bend it without a tool. The teacher was not particulary fond of boys and I suspect this particular assignment was meant to make up for centuries of male chauvanism. Anyhow, still to this day I am awed at the skill some people have in knitting. Those were really nice, I hope Julie appreciates them as much as I would 🙂

  16. lucia (Comment#10788)

    Martin–Check to see if they have some sort of privacy setting. Most those hosts are set up to let you show off your images.

    Let’s leave it as is. Let your system go through maintenance and see if the link remains intact. Then we get a trusted user to click on the link and see what turns up. I’ve tested things using my browser (Firefox) and Microsoft IE. There is no need for us to get worked up about it.

    You might get a different result and so might I. It’s what the end user gets that counts.

    For the time being the link works from your blog and I have had no problems from others. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem with the site I use.

    Let it drift and thank you for spending time with the problem.

  18. So how do you sanitize these booties so you don’t deliver your cold to the newborn? Fortunately, newborns aren’t able to stick their feet in their mouth for a while.

  19. Scooter–
    I figure hand washing should do! I visited my mom and designed a tall bootie at her house. So the baby will get another set.

  20. Lucia, love the mug graphic. I’d buy one but it would have to sit in my cupboard, because if I took it to work it would at the very least get me censured and maybe get me fired, for the most ironic of reasons. Why is there a better market for skeptic merchandise? It’s pretty simple. The lonely voices of the unwashed dissenters have to rely on things like coffee mugs. The techno-scientific elite have the New York Times and other Mega-media outlets to carry their water.

  21. I ordered The Blackboard Stein. I suppose I shall have to put beer in it and then drink said beer to make sure it works and I’m getting a good deal. 😉

    Andrew

  24. Somebody has been tracking their Blackboard Stein online and I am happy to announce that one will be waiting for me when I get home from work today. (If nobody steals it before I get there.)

    Since man has turned the Earth into another flaming celestial orb with his AGW, I project that I will be able to at least cool down locally in just a few minutes with a Steinfull of relatively colder beverage of choice.

    Ahhhh… 😉

    Andrew ♫

  25. I just received my lucia mugs today. They are very nice quality. Thanks for doing this!

    I also made a couple of mugs with the global warming protesting snowmen!

  26. I got my mugs today. They look great and there is no blurring. I tested them out by filling with water and they do not leak and they do not rock. So far, so good. I then heated the water in the microwave until it boiled. The handles remained cool adding evidence to the theory that ceramics are poor heat conductors. The graphics remained intact and did not run. Steam was also observed coming out the top. After this test, I placed teabags (Good Earth Chai tea) into the cups. The bags went to the bottom and the string hung over the edge perfectly. I think you have a winner here.
    The next test I will run will repeat the above tests n times to determine the rate of perceptible patina buildup. The caveat to this test is that no sweeteners will be used which would increase acidification of the cup walls and promote a positive feedback to the patina forming effect.

  27. Bigbub–
    I’ve been using mine. So far, no coffee stains in the inside! I drink my coffee black and wash in the dishwasher. So…. we’ll see. I’m also wondering whether the graphics will fade. I know they area applied using heat– at 400F.

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