DIY Pi Day Pie Plate

Happy Pi Day! Again. And also, National Pi Day was last week. Last week I showed you my banana and chocolate cream pie that I made for the unofficial holiday, and today I want to show you the pie plate that I made for that pie.I wanted an actual Pi Pie plate with the pi digits around the rim as well as a big pi symbol in the middle. In case you’re wondering what pi is, it’s 3.14 – or the mathematical equation used for finding a circle’s circumference to its radius or diameter. (It’s been a really long time since I took a math class, so I REALLY hope that I wrote that correctly.) Technically, pi is a irrational number, so its decimal representation never ends. Literally. There are like a million digits in pi. But for my purposes, I only used about 30 digits.

I started out with a clean pie dish with a thick white rim and some metallic opaque glass paint. I know you’ve probably seen a million different pins on Pinterest saying you can use a sharpie on glass and cook it on, but I’ve heard from many people that the sharpie method actually doesn’t work, and that the sharpie washes off. I didn’t really want toxic sharpie coming off in my pie, so I used the Martha Stewart Crafts brand of glass paint (just because it was the only one I could find at the craft store).

The instructions said to clean the glass with alcohol first, but I didn’t really have any cleaning alcohol (is that a thing?) on hand, so I just cleaned it with vinegar.

Next, I looked up the digits of pi and started writing them around the rim. I kind of had a hard time with paint regulation as I was writing. As in, some of the numbers are kind of thick, some are kind of scraggly, but some are just right too! I then outlined the pi shape in the center of the pie plate and filled it in with the glass paint.

Next, you have to “cure” the paint. You can either let it air dry for 21 days, or you can be in a hurry to make a pie like me, and do the oven method. To cure your glass paint using your oven, place the item that you have painted in a cold oven, and then set it to 350 degrees. It’s important to place it in the oven before you turn it on because you want the glass to gradually heat up with the oven. I’m not exactly sure what happens if you put it straight it into the hot oven, but I imagine it involves some kind of Hollywood action film explosion.

After you have put your glass painted item into the cold oven, and it’s reached 350 degrees, let it bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes has passed, turn off the oven and leave the glass item in there until it has completely cooled down. I’m sure there wouldn’t actually be a huge explosion if you don’t do this, but your item will probably shatter if it heats up or cools down too quickly.

The finished product didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted it to. As you can see, I applied the glass paint a little too thick in some areas and it bubbled up. Fortunately, even with the bubbles the pi pie plate was still completely cured, and I was able to use it for my Pi Day pie!

I’m super excited to paint some other glass items using glass paint now that I know how to use it.

Have you ever tried the sharpie on glass method or do you prefer using glass paint?