Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more
Look at these gorgeous bars of felted soap for sale on Etsy from SandieK.
If you’re inspired by these photos and want to make felted soap yourself, click here to go to the Mielke’s Fiber Arts. Hint: you don’t have to make the soap. It’s all in the wool and the felting process to make these little works of art.
Felting Soap is a time-tested method of hiding really ugly soap or just adding value to a normal bar of soap. Wool shrinks when it gets wet. It’s a ten to fifteen minute process to felt a bar of soap but isn’t the final product beautiful?
Check out The Funky Felter’s Etsy shop or her blog here.
If you missed the Celebration Soap, click here to recap this easy project.
The photo below shows a common issue when embedding objects in melt and pour. Sometimes air bubbles will catch under the wide, flat surface of the embedding soap. If the air bubbles are trapped between the mold and the soap, a bubble will form. The soap isn’t ruined. It’s just not … perfect.
To escape this not-perfect look, first spritz your embedding object with alcohol. Next, add your embedded goodies at a slant. This allows the air bubbles to slide up the side of the hardened soap, leaving your surface smooth and unpocked.
Another pesky issue with the Celebration Soap sinking glitter. Unless the soap is very viscous, it will not support the weight of the glitter. This leaves a very top-loaded glitter star. A solution for this is to pour the soap in the mold, wait 30 seconds and then sprinkle glitter on the backs of all of the bars. The slight surface tension in the soap will support the glitter, leaving both the tops and bottom of the soap densely glittered and shiny.
The soap on the left utilizes the same method as the clear Celebration Soap but uses a white overpour instead. One of the features that makes melt and pour soap so artistic and creative is the ease of design options. Just by changing one color, there’s an entirely new design of soap!
Look for more soap combinations and final photos later this week.
DCCyril, also known as Diana from the Shea Bath Blog, won last week’s contest! Diana, email me with your address (info at brambleberry dot com) and I’ll get your box of soap, essential oils and soapmaking dvd out to you right away.
In case you didn’t read all of the comments on the Long Road to Self-Improvement post, I’ve copied my favorite below. It was from an anonymous commenter who deserves much credit for such a heart felt post. So, anonymous, whoever you are – thank you for the meaningful essay about 2008. Best of luck with your surgery.
I don’t set long-term goals, as LIFE has a way of changing an individual’s direction on a moments notice!
Instead, I choose to live every moment in the best way I can and with the best attitude I can.
Don’t decide tomorrow that you will begin doing this or that. Start TODAY, this very minute.
Tell the people that you love of their importance, NOW.
This past year saw me have 4 surgeries since July and being in a wheelchair for a couple of months, all the while caring for both my 87 year old stroke-survivor Mom, 80 year old father-in-law (both living locally) and my 87 year old Dad (living 80 miles away).
Any set goals set in January 2007, had I made them, would have flown out the door, with the above events and the surrounding circumstances!!
I am about to have more surgery within a couple of weeks and expect to be back in that wheelchair, again. So be it.
By always realizing that things DO change (and, seemingly, always without a flicker that it is coming), I know I can handle whatever happens.
I always say “I love you” to my husband when he leaves (whether to work each morning or to go skiing on a weekend). A drunk driver or a simple miscalculation can separate people forever. We can smile and know that, no matter what, we always say and show each other that love.
The same goes with our son and our parents. We tell our son how much he means to us. I thank neighbors for being wonderful (and, I tell them this when they haven’t done something special!).
Goals are something to strive for, an ending to a plan. But, they aren’t really the end! Opening another store, or reaching a desired weight or having a child mark the beginning of other stages in your life, not an end to the previous chapter.
Make plans for those desired stages and continue to adjust to the changes they bring. A curving river is more interesting than a straight canal!!
Happy 2008!
After I wrote today’s blog post on the importance of being prepared, I read an interesting post over at Lip-Sticking (a blog devoted to marketing to women online) that got me thinking.
In almost every interview I’ve done, I credit luck, a great team and being in the right place at the right time for Bramble Berry’s business success.
Yes, it was hard work (and by golly, still is!). Yes, I gave up a lot (and still do) to ensure that Bramble Berry is a business of substance and integrity. And like my post earlier today says, “Luck is being available to take the opportunity.”
But on the flip side, I showed up on the crafting scene when the internet was in its infancy (back in the day when a Word document hastily thrown up on a URL was enough to get customers). And, when Martha was still all about soap (Martha, if you’re listening, can you consider bringing back that heyday of soaping creativity again?). I’ve always chalked that up to synchronicity up to pure luck.
But this article, by Lena West, purports that it’s not luck at all – it’s all about being available to take opportunities as they come at you. She says, “I’m not lucky. I’m on purpose.”
From the article:
I don’t believe in luck. I believe in being prepared.Even scientists who’ve studied luck say that it all boils down to your state of mind. That’s not luck. That’s something we each can control – our thoughts, responses and reactions.
Click here to continue reading. It’s a fast, thought-provoking post.
And, if you feel strongly about, please comment. I am very curious what you think about luck, synchronicity and business.
Seaweed, Salt and Lime Oil (blue soap)
Lemon (yellow soap)
Orange & Cinnamon (orange soap)
This is what happens if you try to unmold the 3-D soap early – whoops. The hot portion of the soap splooshed out and ruined a perfectly lovely bar of soap. Patience is your friend when using the 3-D Soap molds.
The beauty of melt and pour is that the colored soap can always be chunked up and used in another bar of soap. A mistake is never really the end when working with a remeltable base.
Click here for Day One (set up)
Click here for Day Two (color & fragrance)
Click here for Day Three (release and video)
As I mentioned in this post (which included a video of the soap rolling), the layers for this Jelly Roll were too thick. You can see that my rolled soap cracked (yes, my head is hanging low in shame). Thankfully, the middle part of the oval roll was usable so all the soap was not lost.
In my 9 x 9 pan, I used 8 ounces of soap per layer. In hindsight, a 5 ounce layer would have been appropriate.
I’ll have final photos and the final recipe for Jelly Roll Soap posted on the blog tomorrow, Sunday.
Remember, all comments (on any posts) this week are automatically entered to win a Starter Kit of Essential Oils from Organic Fusion so comment as much as you can. The kit is a pretty sweet deal.
If you’ve missed Days 1, 2 or 3, read them first so you’re up to date on the set-up and secret (shhhhh, it’s liquid glycerin) to making really great jelly rolls.
In the video above, you can see the initial rolling process. Notice that the soap is malleable and
though it is quite thick, it rolls with a minimal amount of effort. Unfortunately, this four layer pour is too thick. The thickness is the reason that the soap looks more like an oval, rather than a cute little round.
After the video cuts off, I spent a minute or so massaging the rolled soap into more of a tight, oval shape.
The final soaps are different and unique but the oval shape is not quite what I wanted. Check back tomorrow for photos of the final soap. Plus, we’ll have photos of the same recipe with thinner layers and a clear concise recipe so you can make perfect jelly rolls at home – every time.
I love using flexible baking molds for soap. Look how easily the soap pops out of this mold. Flexible molds are important for making jelly rolls. Whatever you use, make sure it has a bit of give and flex (this means no glass).
Aren’t these little guys cute? I made them with Patina Sheen Mica in white and clear soap. The star is Patina Sheen Mica in clear soap and the background is Patina Sheen Mica in white soap. Isn’t it interesting how gray the Patina Sheen looks in white soap? The soaps are scented with Christmas Spice. The mold is the Mini Snowflake Mold from our Guest Soap Molds collection.
These handy little 3-D soaps on ropes were made with our 3-D Molds, soap ropes and a variety of colors. The red is our non-bleeding red, the white is white soap base, and the light green color is Opalescent Green in Clear Soap and the Orange is Cellini Red in Clear Soap.
If you haven’t seen the tutorial on how to make 3-D Soap on a Rope, click here.
These are the final product of the messy Talc Project from last week. The template for these lovely, simple labels can be found here. It’s a PDF File and takes a few minutes to download.
Enjoy making these fun and easy gifts for Christmas. If you come up with innovative ways to keep the dust down, let me know. I’d love to share it with our group.
A big thank you to Lori Nova from The Nova Studio for sharing her wealth of knowledge and expertise with the Soap Queen Blog.
Lori has this to say about powder projects:
Hi Anne-Marie,
I’ve been enjoying reading about your powder experiments and wanted to share a few suggestions. I teach a class on making body powders and do it similar to how you do it, but I have the students first combine all the powders into a plastic ziplock baggie – drop the fragrance in one drop at a time spread around the powder (i think it blends better not to blob it in). Then they mix first in the ziplock baggie for about 3-5 minutes before sifting through a fine mesh sifter several times.I think there is less dust & less sifting this way. For an adult body powder, I use a bit of kaolin clay to help with adhesion (since cornstarch and arrowroot have poor adhesion), and if I’m making a powder for babies i’ll include some zinc oxide too. Also, I would suggest doing the sifting/packaging outside if possible 🙂 to keep your house and your lungs cleaner. These are just a couple things that came to mind.take care, lori (at) thenovastudio.com
What an ingenious idea from All My Soap – bubble wrap as the mold liner. It adds texture and depth and gives us all something to do with the copious amounts of shipping material we’ll receive this holiday season.
