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~~