Paint Chip Challenge
Soaping 101  May 2013 Challenge

Many thank you's go out to Catherine of Soaping 101 for inspiring so many soapers with designs, ingredient study and color knowledge and new soap techniques!  Her Paint Chip Soap Challenge was just the best!   I find these challenges keep me off the streets and are so full of wonderful artistic expression and learning experiences.  Catherines soap creations can be seen   here.

 Thank you Catherine  for your generosity sharing your knowledge and your skills as an instructor.  In a word you are "awesome"!   One day I hope to find the painting that inspires my attempt at pixelating soaps.   So Soaping 101 and Catherine with this darling little bird were the inspiration for my Paint Chip Soap.  Fragranced with Lilikoi Passion Fruit this soap smells so fresh so tropical so time for a VACATION!  I love how it worked out and had a ball doing it. 

DesignSeeds is the most amazing web site for color  inspiration as well as photographic artistry.  They have the most lovely colors posted today for Mother's Day.   Find   DesignSeeds    HERE   

 Think I'll name this soap RIO.   Or how does TWO Tickets 2 Paradise sound?   One of these bars is going to Raleigh with me to give to a friend.  I hope I see you there too !

I'll need to kick up the colors a bit next time perhaps, I'm always conservative with color.  With the green teal separated into three containers I added Activated Blk Charcoal to one and White Pearly mica to another and left the third color the original color.  I love Bramble Berry as they have wonderful  micas for coloring here coloring

Love the colors of Rio at Carnival time!

Another recent endeavor this is a unisex combination of Pink Suga  meets the Perfect Man!  Fantasy soap!~  The tan will be dark brown in about 4 weeks and I hope it doesn't migrate into the hot pink.  

The last soap is a self challenge and is made with fresh squeezed lemon juice from our yard!  I can't wait for home grown avocados.

Aloha everyone and happy summer here in the northern hemisphere!  

Week 4 our last week for the GreatCakes soaping challenges.  The challenge for week 4  is to do a soap with leopard spots!  This was inspired as I understand it, by a baker who made a leopard spotted cake!  Duplicating leopard spots in soap  a unique challenge to be sure!

As our little Bengal domestic tabby's are just the perfect models for a spotted theme I was all set!

Mz. Kathmanduzie -  Duzie for short was 7 pounds of pure joy and love and cuddles.  We lost our little Duzie last summer and still miss her so, but I wanted to share her with you.   She was graced with the most perfect rosette spots!   We still are the staff for her baby brother Mauser as a kitten below!

Mauser The Scorpion King due to the crook on the end of his tail, is now 11 years old, 15 pounds and a couch potato!  Once so athletic jumping like a helicopter ascends, straight up in the air when surprised, climbing ladders and jumping planters!

Summer coming upon us and I had already brown/tan/black/beige soaps on hand.  I wanted more frou frou and colorful leopard spots for this Mother's Day!

I had high expectations for my leopard spot soap.  Using  a lavender color and  a lilac fragrance oil for this Mother's Day Soap.  Yes next time if I do this again I will go the baggie route like Amy of GreatCakes and Kenna of Amanthia Soap did.  No bottles for me, I did the spoon method length wise. Bottles that's where I draw the line!

The plan was to do lavender spots with gold and or blue mica oil rings encased in black. Well the lilac  fragrance changed up the process I had mapped out.  Oh well live and learn.  I had a great time and learned what not to do and how to do spots by hand.  This soap moved faster than I,  so I had to leave out the mica/oil rings around the lavender spots. This fragrance didn't split the top of the soap but it did heat up internally and left TD crackles!   I love the lavender rimmed in black on the white field.  These smell so marvelous, scented with Bramble Berry Lilac fragrance oil for spring.  Mother's love this soap!  Leaping Lilac Leopard Spots.

Mother's Day 2013      Leaping Lilac Leopard Spots!

They need dressing up a touch and then they will be good to go!  Wouldn't a touch of blue or gold mica oil between the lavender and black be cool?

Mother's Day 2012

 It has been a wonderful time with this group and learning with you.  Thank you each and everyone for sharing.  And many thanks to Amy Wardenr of GreatCakes Soap for hosting these challenges.  Please visit Amy  here to admire her leopard spots and see all the interpretations of spots by such a talented community of soap makers!

Aloha,

PS.  Maybe next year I will attempt the art of filming while I soap!
Mella

Diamond Girl you sure do shine!

Week 3 of the challenge from Amy Warden of GreatCakesSoap  Works.    This challenge is mica swirls and several wonderful soap makers have videos showing just how it is done.  As a professional soap maker Emily of Sheih Design Studio has an informative video on swirling soap tops with micas to view.  Lovely gold and purple mica swirls adorn the soap in this video!


Here is my 2nd ever mica swirl  Black Raspberry Vanilla done a few months ago and  much like the Christmas Berry from Christmas 2012.

The soap below is for this 3rd week challenge and  is called  named Diamond Girl!   Do you ever get a song caught in your mind repeating over and over again?!  Well this was the song and I made it into a soap!  Diamond Girl You Sure Do Shine!  Over and over and oooover.  LOL

 This  is made with a gold and white pearly mica swirl!  Silver would have been better than the white pearl but you use what you have.  The swirl wasn't as photogenic or prominent as the one above, but it is just as dramatic in person!   There is no color in the base of the soap, just natural coloring with some inclusions for interest.  All the glamor is on the top of this moisturizing bar full of extraordinary bubbles and lather.  

Once again I used a new fragrance for the first time, I must used them up!  Well might as well live on the slippery soapy edge and keep it challenging and exciting!  The fragrance is a white floral combined with a sweet citrus and very upscale.  I hope you enjoy looking as I sure enjoyed making this one!  Soon to be cut giving it a few days due to the recipe.

"Diamond Girl" you sure do shine!  

 

One last soap I just  couldn't resist!

Now that was just so fun that I had to do just one more.  For a peak here is Neptune's Gold which smells amazing.  Another new fragrance from Wellington's in Ohio.  This is such a fun touch to the tops of my soaps and in the future I'll try to incorporate other colors into what I'm working on!

Neptune's Gold

I am looking forward to all the beautiful soaps this challenge has inspired!  The colors the magic oils and the fragrance.

Elemental my dear Watson!

On to week 2 of the GreatCakesSoapWorks 2013 Spring Soaping Challenge.  What a wonderful group of soapers completed week  1,  such talent and beautiful soaps!  Soapsporn for the summer to mull over yeah!  Thank you  Amy Warden  ,  thank you so much for the nudge and for inspiring a search in the tool cabinet once again.  Oh and I have an idea for another challenge Amy if you need one!

It took me almost a week to dream up what I would attempt for my challenge as most of my supplies are in storage right now as we have listed our home for sale.  Here is the Moon and the Stars with the Sand and  the Surf.  Four elements that move me and give me great joy.   Like many of the 2013 challenge community I too went with a know accelerating fragrance because it smells so great and doesn't discolor! You can see the pockets where the flow wasn't!

 

These soaps didn't follow the rules exactly.  Rather that in the pot swirls I did in the cup swirls with inclusions and micas then poured in sections.  The moon section has mica lines, the star section has star inclusions with mica, the sea has mica streaks and the sand has ground nut hulls and mica.  It was a very messy  production but with each new challenge new lessons are learned. And I had fun messing things up!

 YES I will do this one again I really like it even though it is a rough go this time!  I am so looking forward to seeing what others imaginations came up with.  Oh and thank you  to a most favorite soaptician for inspiring this beginner.  Happy Saturday everyone!  ~~Pam Mella~~

Happy Easter everyone and happy new beginnings!

 Amy of  Great Cakes  has presented a new challenge for 2013 and it is Tiger Stripe Soap!  New beginnings in the soaping community!  Thank you Amy and Co for stirring the imagination yet again!

Having spent the majority of February preparing our home for sale in Northern California    locally referred to as the "Napa" of the North.  We have our very own neighborhood vineyard  Grey Fox and orange orchards all around.  The oranges have fresh new blossoms ready to burst next sunny day. 

Our windows have never been so crystal clear so now it's on to tiger stripes!  These stripes were colored with clays and non gelled for a velvet texture.  There is a touch of salt on the top for fun!  I will use a different technique pouring next time and that should help, pouring from side to side not up and down the mold!

So here  is   Salt Water Taffy!!  This time the stripes were a little ah squishy so I named the soap for salt water taffy.  Fragrance was added to each color with a different scent and it does smell like a luscious citrus y  salt water taffy.  It is still a touch too soft to cut so I thought I'd play with the cropping of the photos and the color brightness and contrast setting and show the differences. 

Untouched color but cropped photo.

This photo is untouched not even cropped.

Auto corrected color and contrast.  This does enhance the color some but beyond even what the cured colors  will be I surmise!  I prefer muted color in my soap I suppose to limit the amount of color I use.  Of course there are exceptions to that see last photo! LOL

First soap using Cambrian Blue Clay for color.

  Firsts don't you love them!  This soap bar is made with Cambrian Blue Clay from Russia. I like the color and will do another soap using this clay in the future.   The hydrangea flowers were added for contrast and to dress up these bars for Easter or Mother's Day or maybe just Happy Spring everyone!  One batch of this soap went to a  swap!  Notice the bright color flowers a "thank you to Kyme" ~~ Alamo Calendaria for inspiring this soap  Hydrangea  Flowers  for inspiring this soap!

Hoppity hop  on over to Amy's blog and check out all those interpretations of tiger stripes some very beautiful soaps!  Kyme's might just be my favorite!

Oh my gosh it is surely February!  Time is evaporating as I live and breathe.  We are in the process of putting our home on the market, packing, painting and cleaning so soap is back in the closet for now.

Just a few photos of the faux funnel swirl challenge of last year.  Some cut out of the log vertically and some cut horizontally.  These soaps I was disappointed in at first.  A grapefruit essential oil was lovely but the soap didn't speak to me if that makes sense.  The process was fun the colors were fun but I wasn't inspired.

This soap is now one of my favorites and I think it is because it sat on the back shelf neglected for so long.  It is around 6 months old and is a dream to use!  Go figure cure time is to me the longer the better!

Original batch no horizontal slices here but a wonderful soap at 6 months.  The TD did a crackle effect in this batch.

Another batch with front vertical cut and two middle bars cut horizontally!

A combination of horizontal and vertical cuts of faux funnel swirl technique.

A faux funnel into a mold.

Happy New Year everyone! 

I have been on hiatus since December 10th.  Off to the Big Island in the Blue Pacific for some sun!

So I've been organizing this and that and dreaming up my next soap!  Oh I need do stock for the etsy store and for the summer markets that begin in May.  Yes a house warming gift that's what I'll get in the mood with!

 Off to the breakfast nook to stir up some trouble.  January 1 I did fragrance testing on 18 fragrances.  This is part of my new credo "BUY NO OTHER Fragrance "' until these are used up!  A good resolution even if it takes one two years to program it into the noggin!  No photos of the fo test maybe tomorrow.

 
Today I did 4 pounds of luxury soap heavy avocado and mango butter.  I used a 4lb wooden mold and divided it into two with a homemade dam.  Well damn  the dam leaked and some of one soap became part of the other.  I'll cut it tomorrow PM and see what damage was done.  Some of the cucumber leaked into the lavender. 

So here are the soaps before I put them to bed!

Cucumber Melon

 

The next batch is Camomile and Lavender and I hope the leak wasn't to bad into this side.  I love the colors!

 

Happy soaping soap buddies and sending wishes to you for all the best for 2013!