Mixing it up

I was looking at Cee's post on her bubble bath cupcakes, which was a bath bomb on the bottom and bath melt on top. It made me wonder what else you could mix together in terms of soaps.

Having some bath fizzes laying around, I decided to try putting into regular soap. I had to really watch the temperature of the soap since I didn't want it liquid-y enough to start the fizzing process (no idea if it would or not, but I didn't want the neighbours to hear me cursing if it did) so the soap ended up being almost like a jelly when I poured it.

I'm not sure how it will work out; I'm hoping that if used in a bath, the fizzies will fizz and leave the indentation behind in the soap, which would be kinda cool.

The back actually looks better than the front.

What new techniques are you currently working on? Have a great week!

I'm ready for my photoshop, Mr. De Spielberg

What's more fun than mixing metaphors? Mixing names. Yeah right. I need to find something a little more entertaining.

As Cee mentioned in her post a couple of weeks back, it's getting more difficult to take pictures with natural lighting now that it's become more scarce. Natural lighting in my house is iffy at the best of times, so I turn to my friend, Picasa.

I use Picasa to put more light on my pictures that the window just doesn't allow for, and to crop the pictures to focus on the soap which I'm not very good at with my little point and shoot.

Embeds, because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

There are lots of posts on how to make your own lightbox, which I need to do one of these days because those shadows are darned annoying.

The other soap I made this week was inspired by what I saw on Pinterest for men's soap. This one in particular made me go wow. Mine didn't turn out as well, and not just because it's not CP soap. Did you know you can actually have your soap so hot that it melts the plastic mould? I'm really overdue to get a thermometer.

But it smells good at least. Beau Brummel, one of my favourite scents.

And last but not least, I got another order for the alphabets. So I've gotten a good start on it, I think.

Stay dry (at least if you're on the west coast) and have a great week!

The Half Baked Plans of Mice and Men

Oh wait, that's not the saying is it. I'm blaming it on Oil & Butter and Soapjam for their delicious looking soaps. And with a name like soapjam, how can I not be thinking of food all the time?

So in keeping with that theme, and the season, I thought I would make a late summer picnic soap. This was also due to seeing Brambleberry's email on embedding and who doesn't like embeds?

This was a great example of what works in theory doesn't necessarily work in real life. I thought I could cut up stripes, and layer them to make a picnic blanket look. Foreshadowing of things to come - my red soap didn't want to come out of the mould. No problem, I thought, I'll just pop out the white soap, cut it up into strips and place it on top of the red. That'll give the right look, right? Wrong.

Looking at the bottom of the soap

The supposed clear layer isn't as clear as it needs to be for the "blanket" to show up either. But the embed is cute, isn't it?

No problem, let's try it again. But this time, I'll make cut the red and white pieces the same sizes so that it can all fit back into the mould properly. That again is great in theory and would probably work, if the mould wasn't contoured ever so slightly. I squished the squares of soap in, working as fast as I could so the clear base wouldn't complete solidify before all the squares were in. It almost worked, but as you can see it's not a pretty finish.

And then, to add insult to injury, the clear soap wasn't clear at all. 

At that point, I gave up to go find a "life of the party" and I don't mean a soap making kit either.

Thinking about it later though, it's all a matter of advertising it right? I can market these "one of" soaps as haute savon and the rest that I've made several of, as laver a pret. Sounds better in a foreign language, doesn't it?

The Talented Cee of Oil & Butter

When the very talented Cee of Oil & Butter suggested a soap swap, I jumped at the chance. I knew from her blog that she makes some beautifully creative soaps and I couldn't wait to get my hands on them. She kindly gave me a choice of which ones I wanted, so I chose Yuzu

Beach Bar

and I couldn't decide on a third, so she chose black licorice

I've linked to Cee's pictures because her pictures show the soaps off better.  :)

Did I tell you how much I love her soaps? They are gorgeous and they smell incredible. Hubby was equally impressed by them and I can't wait to try them out. Thanks again Cee!