I recoated with clear glaze and fired again a cone hotter. It helped a teeny bit ... but not much. I decided it was because the manual fire with the kiln setter didn't provide much of a soak.
I went ahead and (stupid is as stupid does) glazed the others and fired all of them in my big kiln thinking the soak at the end would help.
Nope. I was left with a batch full of scratchy crawly glazed mugs with underglazes that had considerably faded.
I went to the auto store down the street and bought various grades of sanders: 60 grit, 100 grit, 320 grit, and 500 grit. I got to work, using olive oil as a sanding medium to keep the dust out of the air.
It worked! I ended up with the neatest strange kind of thick satin glaze on all my mugs. NOTE TO SELF: Do not use clear glaze on red stoneware with underglazes.That was a lot of sanding!
Ok.Got it.
At last it was time to attach the iron oxide laser decals. I choose four of my (current) favorite daisy characters. I refired and when it emerged from the kiln I decided that the zig-zaggy black lines were too dark and overwhelmed the daisy figures. Luckily, I own a large collection of commercial decals and immediately a certain all-over pattern came to mind that would give the entire mug a shabby chic look. I attached them over the vertical bars and fired again. Voila! It worked.
Here is the result:
