Tutorial: Etched Glass Bakeware

    I worked on this today after realizing that so much of my bakeware is missing or has to belong to someone else because it doesn't look familiar at all.  After this project, my bakeware will be a memorable item that will get back to me even if I forget it at a friend's house.

    If you saw my paper pendant tutorial, then you might be thinking, "Dang, she likes the pi symbol."  It's true.  I'm going to attribute it to missing my students and classroom.  In this case though, I think it's pretty clever.  A pie pan with a pi symbol!

After the jump you can see a full tutorial with pictures of how to make your own.  It's so easy and inexpensive!

First, get your materials together.  There are items you will need and then there are some optional items.
-glass bakeware (any size or shape)
-etching cream (I use Armour Etch that I got from Blick Art Supplies)
-contact paper (I got mine from Target)
-paintbrush
-scissors or exacto knife
-permanent marker
-stencils (optional)
-Silhouette Cameo (optional)

    Once the supplies were collected, I thought about what I would like to etch into my glassware.  For the circular pie pan, I decided to etch a pi symbol.  Ha.  Then in the rectangular pan, I went with "yum".  I used the Silhouette Cameo to cut out "yum".  I had the blade set to 3 and the speed set to 8.  I didn't have to reverse the text because I cut with the contact paper side up.  It worked beautifully.

    For the pi symbol, I wanted to do it by hand.  I drew the pi symbol backwards on the contact paper.  Please don't forget that when you draw something out, it will be reverse when you stick the contact paper down.  I almost always forget that.  So any letters or symbols must be draw backwards.  I cut out the pi symbol and was careful to keep the edges of outer part nice.  The outer part of the template is the part that I used.

    Once you have your shapes or letters cut out, carefully stick the contact paper down.  It was hard to avoid bubbles, but it's okay.  The only part that should not have bubbles on the very edge.  You can see there is a little bubble by the bottom right part of the "u".

    To fix a bubble, first press with your finger and see if you can work it out.  If not, you can use an exact knife to cut the edge and then put the contact paper down again.  If you don't fix these, there will be a slightly uneven edge.  Sometimes it ends up looking cool, so it just depends on your preference.

    Once the contact paper is all set, I painted the etching cream inside the templates.  Paint it on pretty thick.  If you don't, then sometimes you can see the brush strokes in the etched part of the glass.

    Also, I went back and double checked all of the edges.  The etching cream is a little bit lumpy and has a tendency to clump away from the edge.  It can cause an unetched part along the edges.  You can see that I overlapped the cream and the edges just to be safe.  The bottle suggests leaving the etching cream for 15 minutes.  I always leave mine on for at least an hour.  I haven't had any problems with that and it make the etching easier to see.

    After an hour, I rinsed off the etching cream by wiping the cream off with my paintbrush while I had warm water running.  I kept going until all of the cream had washed off.  It took a couple minutes.  Then I peeled off the count act paper and dried it off.

    Yay!  A pie pan with a pi symbol!  And...wait...  I washed the "yum" off and peeled back the contact paper to see that the glass wasn't etched AT ALL!  I would suspect the etching cream, but it worked perfectly with the pi symbol.  Moral of the story: I guess some brands of glassware don't work.  The Pyrex definitely did.  The brand that didn't work for me at all is Anchor Hocking.

    Isn't it so cute?!  I had lots of ideas for designs as I was working.  You could do a monogram, your last initial, a geometric design, other words like "dig in", "mmm...", or something else like that.  I also thought putting lines in a pie pan to look like a Trivial Pursuit playing piece.

Happy etching!  If you want another idea for etching cream, check here.