squeeze bottle design

It is challenge time again. Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks gave us the challenge of squeeze bottle design. Amy gave us great tips and video as always.
   Before I started soaping I was a quilter. I have been quilting since before I can remember. I was still in high school anyway I'm a quilter. I have a long arm quilting machine and I quilt for others as well as myself, So I knew that this was my chance to merge the two.

dandelion zebra swirl part 1

Has yet another month flown by without my paying attention? The soap challenge from Amy at Greatcake Soapworks is due so I guess that it has. This month for the  Challenge, we had to create a soap with what is called the dandelion zebra swirl, which is named after the very talented soaper Vinvela Ebony and explained on her blog Dandelion SeiFee. I went to her blog and forgot to turn on the translator, even in German it was informative. much more enjoyable when you turn on the translate.
  So for my soap I used Sugared Spruce from Crafter's Choice. The first thing I smell when is just a hint of orange, then the fresh woody smell of the outdoors.  I grew up a country girl and we always cut our own tree. Which means you cut what kind of tree is growing in your area, so we did not always have the "Christmas pine" most of the time we had a cedar tree. I am pretty sure that my mom was always keeping an eye on the brush that would pop up. sometimes we were allowed to clear it sometimes not. anyway back to soap. I me personally the sugared spruce smells just like Christmas tree that I grew up with.  My color choices are green and orange for my stripe. I added a little titanium dioxide to the base(should have added more).
   It was recommended that we use a slow moving formula. so I went with my formula of
  25% coconut
  30% lard
  35% olive
  10% sunflower
I mixed my oils and lye and proceeded with my soap.

 I used a piece of plexiglass cut to the width of the mold and have it at an angle to pour the green and orange soap alternately. reserving just a touch for the swirl on top.
  Then after removing the plexiglass I gently spoon the remaining base into the mold. drizzle the remaining colored soap along the top for a pretty swirl.

all swirled up and ready to get to gelling.

And here is my soap cut, what did I learn from this challenge? what will I do differently next time? I will bring the base to a little firmer trace, so that the stripe won't sink so far to the bottom. I will use a taller piece of plexiglass so the strip will have more of an angle to it, I will also make sure that it fits a little tighter. and finally I will not make soap while dinner is cooking in the oven above. I always oven process my soap and even though I had my oven temp set to 150, I feel pretty sure that the oven above made mine made the soap oven just a little warmer that I wanted it to be. The top is a bubbly mess. But on a positive note now I know how to recreate my frothy top on my stout soap next time I make it. I was wondering how that happened. To hot of an oven apparently.
    Since it is going to be a nice dry day today I think I will get started on making another dandelion zebra swirl. I am thinking fruit loop scent would be cool for this technique. Thank you Amy Warden for yet another great challenge. now to go look at all the other great entries for this month.
 

Multi-Colored Gradient Soap Challange

     Oh my Gosh! it is that time again, Where did the time go? I can not believe that not only have I not posted since the last Great Cakes Soap Works Challenge but I haven't even had time to soap let alone blog, and I don't know about you but to go that long without soaping is pretty sad.  I sure hope since fall is apon us and Farmer's Market season is over (I haven't found any of these awsome craft shows everyone goes too), I hope that I will be able to soap a little more often.
   On to this months challenge. Multi-Colored Gradient Soap. For my soap I chose my fragrance first. Wild Peach Poppies from Wholesale Supplies Plus, mostly because I have a very small supply of colorants right now so I had to find a scent that I had color to work together. When I think of Poppies I think bright Red. My husband was stationed in England,we lived there for five years, one of my favorite things were the fields full of red poppies. Boom got my first color. Peaches, easy peasy they are yellow orange and have red on the peel and around the pit.

 

My three colors waiting for soap.

 First pour according to notes from Amy's tutorial. Pour about a cup, add about 1/3 cup of the next color (the middle color).

 

Second pour, I see a slight color difference just like I want.

 

third pour also good.

 

this I think is acutally the fith pour and I forgot to take a picture of straight orange.

I also forgot to take a picture of straight red.

 

I had to add a little of the yellow for a swirl on top. I don't like to waste soap. I would have liked to do two more layers of blending but I knew that I didn't have enough room left in the mold. and as it was I had enough soap left over to fill a silicon brownie mold. I think they will be perfect for samples.

I think I will call this soap "Poppy goes the peach" ?  We will see.

 

Just cut with the flash I think the red is too dark.

 

The red is still a little too dark and could have used two more blends with the orange but without the flash on the camera you can see the yellow to orange blend quite nicely. Lesson from this challenge. if you are working with a really strong color like say red, the first addition should have been maybe 1/4 cup instead of 1/2. The color was just too strong for the orange. I have some idea for some new christamas scents that just came in. I better find some time to soap.

Holly Swirl

       So this months challenge is the Holly Swirl created by Holly Bailey of Missouri River Soap Co. It was really fun but I almost didn't get to make any in time for the deadline because life had to throw us a few curve balls and I was out of town for a week. well The first attempt was a unscented Castile. I have a goat milk Castile but wanted to add a straight Castile to my line as well. So for my first swirl I tried to use colors that to me felt like olives. I chose a black base with a green and white swirl with yellow on top.
   Well 100% olive oil takes such a long time to reach trace.  I also really should get a larger container for the in the pot swirl.

Unscented Castile Holly Swirl Soap

        Also When you make a Castile Soap it is very soft so cutting really should have waited a extra day. I can never do just one on these challenges so my next soap was a White Tea and Ginger fragrance.

  I started with a brown base did a white and green swirl with a little more brown on top and then I had some yellow shimmer mica and use some of the left over green and white soap and did a mica swirl on top.

   I also did my first video since my little guy was out of town for the night and I didn't have to worry about how to edit out back ground noise. Trust me if he is in the house there is going to be noise.

    School starts Monday so maybe I will be able to give this blog a little more attention and start posting a little more often than the day before voting closed for a challenge. I love this Swirl I Bought a biger bowl right after I finished my last batch so I see this being done a lot more in the future. Thank You Amy for the challenge.

And my finished product just cut. I am very pleased with the way this turned out. 

Mantra swirl

It's challenge time again, this month Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks has challenged us with the Mantra swirl.

    We had a little longer to make and post our photos but with the Fourth of July it didn't feel like extra time.

   I use a slow moving recipe, scented with patchouli EO, I think it accelerated trace a little. I was going for a purple and green with a hot pink stripe down the center. What I got is a green and brown with a peachy center. My purple morphed. I really need to stop procrastinating and order some colorants from the conservatory.

  

When I cut it was when I discovered that my soap should have been Thankfully I can express oil olive oil oil and oil are you back in the lab and I are downloaded this way don't know why you think it's too hard to a little more fluid, it didn't swirl as much as I would have liked.

I will defiantly be giving this another try. I am also going to go to Lowe's and get a piece of plexi glass to cut to fit my mold so that I can wash and reuse the devider.

 Thank you Amy.

             My booth all set up At Moore Farmers market Saturday. The weather was wonderful. I did well enough to continue to go on Thursdays as well as Saturdays. To add to my busy schedule today is sign up day for the second challenge from Great Cakes Soapworks. This challenge will be "the Mantra swirl"

this is posted from Great Cakes Soapworks. I don't think mine will be that cool but it will be fun to learn something new.  Till next till have a bubbly day.

          Still no video of the peacock swirl, the video may never get
uploaded, it wasn't to bad but it wasn't great either. I will do my
 best to take a decent video and upload it for the next challenge.
 I learned so much I can't wait for the next one. it starts
next week so I will be busy.

   But for this week I have found a farmer's market to attend. Moore Farmer's market. The first one will be Thursday June 20th. 4-7 p.m.  I think I will go and give it a shot.
 









 Here are some bath bubble bombs that I made.
 They are scented with
Relaxation EO and FO. the
description is blue lavender and palmarosa.
I don't know what palmarosa shold smell like
but it has a fresh smell to me. These bombs not only
fizz but they bubble too.
and if that isn't enough to make you want to
take a bath they also have powdered milk
 for moisturizing.
 




Check back tomorrow for an update on how the market went. and I promise that I will leave all sharp objects at home this time.