Each year I have made Bean’s classmates handmade gifts for Christmas. I’m sad that this little tradition of mine is coming to an end as he will be heading off to secondary school next year, so I wanted to make one last special effort for a class of 10 and 11-year-olds: 33 individually illustrated mugs, each with its own character and, of course, the new owner’s name.

The idea was to create a whole collection of little characters, with each one designed especially for the child receiving it. There are monsters, aliens, robots and all sorts of animals, each sharing a familial design connection with the rest of the mugs, but each unique.

Each character was illustrated holding a small name plaque, making the child’s name part of the design. The reverse of each mug has the name on its own, and to keep the personalisation special whichever side of the mug you happened to be looking at.

It’s been a key part of making the children’s gifts these past few years that each child’s name is incorporated into the gift. A lot of the children in Bean’s class, including Bean himself, do not have names that regularly make it onto keyring and fridge magnet stands at zoos and museums (not that his school ever takes the kids on school trips to such places anyway), so here they get a little keepsake dedicated to them.

Once all 33 illustrations were designed it was a lengthy process sublimating the designs onto the blank mugs, and creating little care instructions cards, gift labels and wrapping and labelling the finished mugs (in fact, I left the wrapping to Russell, who finished the gifts off perfectly and let me rest).

Thirty-three mugs, for thirty-three classmates. Just like the children they are going to, no two are quite the same, but together they make a rather lovely little gang.