An Epic Fail

Well, I can't really say I did it this time . . .  but I tried!

If you are on Pinterest you may have seen one of many variations of this project:

In theory, you are supposed to be able to write on a Dollar Store plate with Sharpie, bake it in the oven, and then the ink will be permanent. Wow! So easy, so cheap, so cute. I was planning on doing this for some Christmas gifts this year. Luckily, I had the good sense to try it out first. Here is my sample plate before it goes into the oven:

Not bad for 5 minutes of work. I followed the instructions: Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, then let cool in oven. Theoretically the ink is now permamently baked on and you can safely use and wash the plate. Theoretically. The day after baking my plate I washed it to verify that the project worked. This is the result:

Yes, quite a bit of my original "art" has gone missing. Grrr!  I am so glad I didn't buy a whole bunch of plates for this project. At least this way I only wasted $1.00. And I used the plate (after scrubbing off the rest of the Sharpie) to send truffles to my husband's holiday work party, so I guess the $1.00 wasn't a total loss.  I still see the project popping up on Pinterest regularly, so maybe I just had a defective plate, but I wouldn't waste time and money on this project.

I did it! I failed utterly and completely at my latest Pinterest-inspired project. If you have already tried this one, let me know how it worked for you. If you haven't, I just saved you $1.00!