The warm colors were “Ultra White” soap and the cool colors were mango butter soap. To use up more of my years-old soapmaking supplies I made a second dozen bars simply by swirling oatmeal and cocoa butter soaps together in the mold. That went less than smoothly, though – the cocoa butter soap had a low melting point, and after ten or fifteen minutes I went to put the mold in the freezer and instead splashed liquid soap across the rainbow bars (the three pictured are the only ones that were unscathed) and kitchen floor. Grr.

The bars aren’t too diminished in size, though. And at least what I got on the rainbow soap was just more soap.

Incidentally I had a problem with my caching plugin setup that likely kept everyone from seeing the new pattern and tutorial catalog onsite when I posted about it. I’ve fixed it, so please check it out and let me know what you think!

The post Rainbows, Finally appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

I have one last FYDP accomplishment.

• Made rainbow soap. It may be weird colors that look more like an unappetizing jello mold than soap, but it’s rainbow soap.

We trimmed the edges off after I took this picture, which helped a bit.

Total accomplished projects:

1. Mending: 7
2. Non-mend sewing: 5
3. Elimination: 11
4. Website updates: 6
5. Crochet: 3
6. Other crafts: 1

Before starting FYDP, I made a long list of projects that were lingering. Here’s the breakdown of items that haven’t been crossed off that list.

Total remaining on list:

1. Mending: 5
2. Non-mend sewing: 4
3. Website updates: 4
4. Crochet: 2
5. Other crafts: 1

I am very happy to see that, even ignoring eliminated projects, each category’s “accomplished” number is at least as high as its “remaining” number. Total totals: 33 accomplished, 16 left on list. Two-thirds taken care of.

What did I learn? That having a time set to be mindful of lingering projects skyrockets the probability I’ll finish them, as does public accountability. That counting elimination as an accomplishment helps greatly in making it happen. That sustaining momentum for a project over three months is nigh-on impossible.

I hope this was a productive period for all of you. Maybe we’ll do it again sometime.

The post FYDP Final Roundup appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

First off, I made an order with Wholesale Supplies Plus for a bunch of soap-related things: a mold, two sampler kits, and a set of coloring blocks (which I admit I ordered mostly to get above $100 and get a free gift, which was my choice of one of 10 or 12 fragrance oils). Full marks for that experience: the website is good, the shipping was fast, and they even wrapped electrical tape around the lid of the fragrance bottle to keep it from leaking. Here’s my soapbox:

That photo was taken after making a set of soaps with the new materials, as well as with some of my TJ Maxx soaps – I chopped up and melted some very strongly scented floral soap along with some lavender-vanilla guest soaps, some water, and some unscented shower gel, and then pressed the mixture flat in an old take-out box.

Then I used some heart-shaped cookie cutters to punch out pieces to embed in glycerin soap. I used up the last of my original block, plus a pound each of honey, olive oil, and high lather glycerin soaps from my sampler packs. I embedded in four or five steps, trying to get the bars with multiple pieces to embed at different levels. I would have has more success with slightly more patience, but it worked out pretty well.

I’ve been using a bar in the shower and although it started out a little big for my hands it makes great shave gel. It also smells amazing – I was kind of tempted to taste the honey soap because it smelled so good (I refrained).

Finally, as promised, an update on the foamy soaps. As expected, the soap with more non-glycerin both lathers better and is getting worn down faster. In the picture below, you can see that. It’s also been used more but not as much more as it appears. The embedded shapes are not appearing as nicely as I might have hoped; I think the bat is going to be missing half of one wing and the tip of the other before his body comes fully into view. The star looks pretty nice, though. Recall I made a double layer of those embedded shapes, one clear and one purple.

We call this LEARNING.

The post Soapdate appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

I have been experimenting more with soapmaking. I got a gift card for Jo-Ann Fabrics from my grandmother for Christmas, and I went to their (horrible) website and (with a great deal of pain and effort) ordered some clear glycerin soap and a soap mold. I already had some purple glycerin soap I’d bought at a winery, which was supposed to be wine scented but is really artificial grape flavoring scented.

I had the brilliant idea that I would mix some non-glycerin soap with the clear glycerin to slightly tint and scent it, and after a little spree at TJMaxx, came away with some acai scented soap, which complemented the grape scent well. There was one problem: grossly different melting points. I was microwaving the glycerin, which works great, but the non-glycerin does not melt at temperatures the glycerin can reach without scorching. I did a lot of whisking, which introduced some foam but did not succeed in fully incorporating the soap bits. The foam rose to the top of the soap molds, which actually produced an interesting effect. I poured a bit, embedded some shapes that were half grape soap and half plain glycerin, and poured some more.

The first picture above is the top when the soap was in the mold, and the second is the bottom. You can see the embedded shape trapped some of the foam/soap bits, and the rest rose to the top. The bat soap is one of the two for which I had to melt some additional glycerin, which is why it is not completely covered in foam. I like that effect, actually. It’s kind of like the bat is flying through fog, or you’re seeing it in the clouds.

To make the shapes, incidentally, I sliced the soaps with a wire cheese slicer and then cut with cookie cutters.

That first run made four soaps, a triceratops soap that turned out like the bat soap and now resides at my boyfriend’s apartment, and a heart soap that didn’t unmold that well and was melted down for round 2: the foamination.

I thought it would be cool to intentionally get the foamy effect of the first set of soaps, and so I combined glycerin and non-glycerin soap with some water, put it in the top of a double boiler, added salt to the bottom of the double boiler so it would boil hotter, and whisked thoroughly. It didn’t get completely smooth, but it got very thick and foamy.

These came out quite soft and I was not convinced they would hold up to use without crumbling. I wrapped them in paper towels for a few days to try to dry them out a bit before testing the two square soaps with handwashing. Verdict? Unsurprisingly, the foamy soap produced better lather. It also held up solidly, though it kind of looks like it has the mange. The square is slightly large for my hands’ comfort, but fine (I might prefer a smaller footprint with a thicker soap). I’ll keep using them and see what happens when I reach the embedded shapes.

Clean-up was in two rounds, and round two contained a surprise. It’s not exactly vulcanization of rubber, but it was a happy accident. See for yourself (and don’t mind how subdued I sound in this video):

The post I am the mad scientist of soap appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

1. Ulu knife sheath
2. Vermont soap
3. Business card holder
4. Trio of “paint card notepads”
5. Trio of bookmarks
6. Lowly Worm
7. Flower decoration
8. Memo pad case
9. Robot iron-ons
10. Denim coaster

Since work will be busy through March and I’d like to avoid a replay of the baby sloth episode (though baby sloths are well worth the bandwidth), I’ll post individual entries for each of these, spread out with other entries. Today, item #2!

I stopped in a La Quinta on my drive back from the Midwest to New England, and they had lovely orange-scented soap. The only problems with it were that it was small, as one would expect, and also kind of hard. No problem; I’ve solved that before. This time, in addition to water, I drizzled in some orange-scented bath gel (I like citrus scented bath products). And then I decided to get fancy with the shaping, and dug out a cookie cutter. I am ridiculously tickled by the result:

As before, I diced up the soap fairly fine but not perfectly (it was two La Quinta bars), threw it in a bowl with water and bath gel, and microwaved it to melt/dissolve it. I was a little subtler with the heating this time, doing shorter stints, and I think that helped. Then I put the cookie cutter on waxed paper and used a rubber spatula to scoop and press the soap into it. I left it for several hours to cool and solidify, and then was able to press it out by hand.

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