Impression Mat Challenge

Shells Impression Soap.

I made several impression mats.  This was the third one.  The first and second had bigger shells and even some shark teeth we collected while at Casperson Beach this summer.  The bigger shells did not work well for me on a log mold because I did not like the idea of having to cut the shells or have a half shell on each slice.

 I put the shells on a picture frame and used the pourable silicone from Brambleberry.  It worked well and I learned a lot making three different molds with it.  My vision here is to have at least a row of shells per slice of soap.

 I scented this one with lavender, geranium, litsea essential oils. I used a small container and for an in the pot swirl for the shells.  Most of the shells we collected on the beaches were colorful so I wanted to incorporate that.  I also put a little gold sparkle mica mixed with oil from Brambleberry on the "shells" after pouring them in the mat but adding the batter after that sort of moved most of it off.  No biggie.

 I used peacock for the base of the soap and used flirt, orange crush, tahitian teal, and harold's purple crayon and gold sparkle mica for the swirls.  The shells had flirt, orange crush and purple crayon for the itp swirl.  I used snow white to whiten the oils.  I did a spoon swirl after all the soap was poured in the main body then the simple swirl on the bottom.

This is the final results.  I added some of the shark teeth in the final pictures after all.  Next time I may try to get those on top, maybe with a guy scent someday???  The spoon swirl left some interesting figures in the soaps and I am happy with the tops as well.

Thanks Amy, always a wonderful challenge!  Merry Merry everyone, a Blessed Christmas and Holidays for all!

Soap Challenge Skinny Shimmy

The Skinny Shimmy, this month's challenge in the Amy Warden Challenge.  This soap is scented with as Citrus Mint.  I used Spearmint, Grapefruit and Orange 10x essential oils.

The batter stayed liquid through most.  I split all the colors in two and it worked fine.  I used orange tangerine, bright yellow raincoat, peacock and teal micas from various suppliers.

The oils used were of course, coconut, palm and olive oil with additions of babassu, palm kernal flakes, and sunflower oil.  I whitened them with snow mica to try to take out as much green as possible.

This was fun to try, I finally got this result on my third try.  This was a popular scent.  I also tried with lavender spearmint essential oil soap and did not get the S curves I was looking for but this one was a pleasure to cut and see them.  I did use the hand made mold but the soap did not come out so easy even though I put sodium lactate in. 

On the top I just sprinkled jojoba beads, the soap is pretty enough itself!

Thank you Tatiana and Amy for bringing this challenge!  This is a beautiful soap design!

And of course, more pictures!

This month is Clyde Slide for the challenge.  This is one of my last attempts and I like it.  I am calling it Clyde Sliding Among Cedars.

Made with Babassu, Castor, Coconut, Palm, Olive Canola, Apricot Kernel Oils and a little Kokum Butter.

All essential oils for the scent featuring Cedarwood Atlas, a little Fir Needle and some Sage to round it out.

Used all micas from Mad Oils.  Hope you like it!

Mantra Marble Swirls

Made to Measure

 This is a Brambleberry scent, I am always looking to add to the men's line and this sounded perfect.  It soaped wonderfully, no issues.  I did soap a little thicker but I think it adds to the soaps on the men's lines.

The soap is made with Olive, Coconut, Palm, Avocado, Babassu and Castor Oils with the additional conditioning of Argan Oil.

The colors are from Brambleberry and Mad Oils, goldfinger, white snow, neon lazer lemon, hydrated chrome green, neon blue raspberry with added ultramarine blue.

I did add the fragrance to the oils before the lye water as a just in case, I had no problems with it as I mentioned.

I squirted the colors in from side to side and then combed through it using the bamboo skewer comb. Then I used a thicker - about pencil thick - skewer to make the figure eights.

This was fun to do, nice swirl.  I later made another with lemon and peppermint essential oils. It came out nice as well, the batter remained at very thin trace so the lines are smaller.  I was able to use gold mica on top of that for swirling which does look great.  I love using the mica to add depth and beauty to the swirls but the guys are not so crazy about it though.

These are all the pictures I have.  I can see using this again, it is fun and easy to do

The challenge this month is "Opposites" using a divider and a log mold.  I thought about several different opposites, black and white, dry and wet, and a few others.  I decided on high and low with different color schemes. 

I used Hello Sweet Thang for the scent and it behaved wonderfully.  I used micas from Mad Oils.  Opposite sides of the soap are flirt and wicked in white titanium dioxide and then key west blue and goldfinger in white.  I then laid a mica line of 24 k gold. 

Then I let it set up.  One other soap I made, I used the same colors and in the pot swirl for both.  This did look good but I did not use two batches so of course, the mica line was lost.  It is still a nice looking soap though.

Then I set up a second batch and put the same colors on opposite sides.  I then spooned the white layer, added in the colors and was able to hold the mica line fairly well. 

I then laid opposite colors on top again and then finished with this very thin design.

I like how this soap turned out.  The swirls on each side and each layer are different.  It was a simple soap to make but I tried more difficult looks and did not like the way they turned out for this challenge but they are still beautiful soaps. The opposites lie in the colors used and the high low layering of the opposite sides.

 I like peacocks. They are very colorful.  I decided to use different colors from the picture.  All colors come from Mad Oils.  I like the micas, they are easy to mix.  This soap is made with Coconut, Palm, Olive, Sunflower oils.  I put White Ginger and Amber in the base only.  Even though it is not supposed to accelerate I did not want to take any chances with the peacock colors.

I made a couple of other soaps, the first I scented all the way through and it thickened real fast so the design stood above the top of the soap.  While that might be okay, it is not what I was looking for.  Then I made another without scent and learned a few things about making the peacock.  The batter stayed thin and workable until I was finished.

This peacock I went ahead and scented the base.  I only used 1.75 oz of fragrance so it is very soft and it did not thicken much before I finished.

I added some Celery to about an ounce and swirled it in to the base for a little contrast.

Trying to make sure I kept room I poured in the Peacock blue and then added circles of Lorne Green.  I pulled the skewer through each green circle to give it more texture.

Next was Purple Crayon, then a mix of Bubble Jo and Flirt, finishing with a smaller dot of Yellow Raincoat.  I then skewered through each.

I then put in the body of the bird.

I mixed a little Orange Crush with the yellow for the beak.  All in all it was fun to make.  I added another row of feathers to the top as noted in the first picture.

I like the ebru technique and can see many different designs one can make or fashion.  The key is keeping the soap very fluid so the design is flush as if you could put a piece of paper on it and pulling the picture off like the Turkish ebru artists do.

            

                             

Amy Warden's scenery soap challenge -Key Essence- Sailboat-

 

I really love this soap and am very happy how it turned out.  I have been working on it in my mind for a month or so.  I can not wait to go to the beach again.  Making this soap made me want to take another vacation.

 Below is the end of the second batch.  There are grey clouds in here as well as white ones, blue sky scattered about.  It took three batches of soap made one after the other to finish this soap.  I had to use a bigger mold (shoe box) because the sailboat is taller than my regular silicone molds and there would not be enough side room in the tall slender mold.

The forest and more blue sky with white clouds.  The beach is underneath the forest.

 Used peacock from Mad Oils and aqua mica from Brambleberry for the water.  Used Vanna White and Phyllis Diller for the white clouds.  I stuck with mostly white clouds trying to keep the soap bright.

 I put in the water and added a white splash for the boat.  The boat is made before hand with cold process soap.  I 'glued' the parts together using a little clear melt and pour.

Key West and Silverfin from Mad Oils made up the sky, a little wicked to make grey clouds.  3 olive martini and the maniacal pea was used for the forest.  These are from Mad Oils.

Sailboat Soap

 We love to go fishing.  For the scenery soap it had to have water and a boat involved.  We also love vacationing on the Gulf of Mexico whenever possible.  A sailboat on the water seems to be the perfect picture for it.

 While a sailboat is not the kind of boat we have, we love to be out on our deck boat with the kids fishing at our in state lakes. 

 I love the colors in this picture.  While the water is a kind of teal color the sky is blue jay blue.  This is a very bright picture and I tried to keep that with a very bright colored soap.  I used Knock Out fragrance oil from Natures Garden.  This soaped wonderfully!  No issues at all.  This soap will be called Captain when it gets labeled.  A little switch on the scent name from boxer to boat captain but captains do have to skirmish with the gulf and ocean waters at times.