Soap Challenge Club - The Tall Skinny Shimmy

Well....it has been a while since I have entered a challenge.  Life certainly has got in the way this year, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to learn this technique...it looked so cool!

First thing I  decided  to do was go to design seeds and pick a colour pallette.  I ended up choosing two, as I couldn't decide which one I liked more!!

So, I ended up doing 2 soaps!  I had 2 tall skinny moulds, so I figured I may as well!  First one I did was the pink/blue colours.  I made a rookie mistake and added titanium dioxide to the lye water, which meant I had to blend it a bit more then  I would have liked, and therefore my batter got a bit thick.....but I still kind of like the effect!  Scented with Lovely in Lace from NG.

Next one worked a bit bitter.  The batter stayed more fluid, and I was much happier at the end.  This one is scented with Yuzu from NG.

I really enjoyed this technique, and will definitely do it again.  Thanks to Tatiana for showing us how to do this, and for the instructions on how to make the corflute mould....I am sure this will come in handy one day  :)

Until next time
Dianne  :)

April Soap Challenge - The Spinning Swirl

It has been a while since i have done a challenge.  Life has gotten in the way a bit, but I wanted to make time for this one, as it is a new technique to me.  Not too keen on slab molds, or the having to cut horizontally, but I put all that aside and plugged on!!

I decided to do my rainbow soap, as I needed to make some more, and lets face it, this soap seems to get reincarnated every time there is a challenge!!  It is scented with a mixture of Kumquat & Energy Fragrance oils.  These are all my colours before I started pouring.

No photos of the during stage, but I do have some of pre - spin and post - spin!  My batter got a little thick by the end, so the middle didn't really spin!!

I used a cardboard box as my mold, as the only slab mold I have I am not fond of!  It seemed to work well.

Here are the cut photos:

While not completely happy with how they turned out, due to the batter thickening too much, I am pretty pleased with how they turned out.  Due to my aversion to slab molds, and cutting horizontally however, I don't think I will do this again for a while!!  :)

Thanks Amy for another great challenge....and good luck to everyone...

Until next time, take care

Dianne  :)

Butterfly Swirl - January Soap Challenge 2015

Happy New Year everyone.  Here's hoping 2015 will be a great one!

The Challenge this month is the butterfly swirl, and boy, did I chew up my data watching those videos over and over again!!  Basically, it is a kind of drop swirl, then you get your hanger tool and do some fancy moves with it to get the butterfly.  When 2 soaps are placed side by side, they should look like a butterfly!  Hmmmmm.....I got some aliens, and some bug like creatures....not sure about butterflies!!  The best butterfly I got was in my test run....1 colour, Lavender patchouli Essential oils......

So , after my success with my practice run, I got a little ambitious, and decided that I would do a rainbow butterfly!  Yes......6 colours....one of them the base colour and the rest I used as the swirl colours.

Here is my hanger tool.....I used electrical tape to tape chopsticks to my hanger.....worked a treat!

So my Rainbow Soap is fragranced with a mix of Energy and Kumquat FO's.  I used the following micas:

Yellow: Lemon Mica

Red: Ruby Red

Orange: Peach sunset

Blue: Blue kamikaze

Purple: Cosmo Martini

Green:  Golden Green

Here are my colours all mixed and ready.  I used the yellow as my base colour and the rest for the swirls.

Everything went pretty much according to plan, finished the top and put the thing to bed!

Here are the results.  I must say I am quite pleased with how this turned out....not really sure if they are butterflies or not, but the effect is pretty cool.

I like the way you get a totally different picture depending on which way you put the soaps together...the next 2 photos are the same pair of soaps.

This one kind of looks lie a skull in the middle!  :)

Anyway....I totally had fun doing this technique.  I have since done it a couple of more times, just because I can!  I really like the swirls this generates....definitely something I will pull out every now and then.....

Well that's it for now.......until next month  

Bye

Dianne  :)

Spoon Swirl : December Soap Challenge

The spoon swirl.....one of my favorite swirling techniques......but how stressful is it when it is part of a challenge!!

Scented in Black Linen and Amber, I used Black Oxide, Tangerine Wow Pigment, Fizzy lemonade pigment and a white base.  During photos are non-existent (again!)

Here is the top.....

And here are some of the cut bars :

I was very nervous about this one, because I had done the spoon swirl so many times, I think it made it worse!  But I am very happy with how it turned out.  Thanks Amy for another challenge.  Good luck everyone, and MERRY CHRISTMAS  :)
Bye
Dianne  :)

Great Cakes Soapworks November Soap Challenge - Combing Techniques

Hi everyone!  Finally I have been able to participate in another soap challenge.  Life has gotten in the way of the last few challenges!  I was a bit excited about this challenge, as I loved the peacock swirl one that we did right at the start.  I considered doing another peacock, and then decided to try the Serpentine Swirl.

I decided everything in kind of a hurry, as I had a limited window, with no kids around and no hubby to distract me!!  I chose a fragrance called Birds of Paradise, and from the description I was pretty sure it would discolour, but for this challenge, that did not matter.

I chose my colours: Blue, Yellow, Green and White.....and used micas to get these colours.  Blue Kamikaze, Lemon Mica, Golden Green and Rutile Sheen for the white.

I actually weighed my soap into the squeeze bottles, so that the colours were even, added my FO to the rest, and put that in the mould.

Then it was the colours:  First the green....

Then the yellow...

Then the blue.....

And finally the white.  Did this quite a few times, and then on the last few times, I made sure that my rows of colours were a bit neater.

Now....I will confess that I couldn't make a combing tool, as I didn't have enough skewers, so I just did all the lines one by one......time consuming, but I did say that this was a spur of the moment thing, so I didn't really have a choice!  The next photo shows the first lot of lines....

The next photo shows the chevron pattern after the next lot of lines going the other direction, and in the middle of the first lot of lines!......and also the start of my next pass with the mould turned.

This shows the soap after all the lines have been done, but before the "s" shape.

And here is the finished Serpentine Swirl!  I was very happy with how this turned out  :)

Cut photos

So that is it!  I finally remembered to take photos of the "during" stages of my soap....I always forget to do that!!  I am very pleased with this effect, and probably would do it again, but I am so tragically

challenged when it comes to cutting slabs, that it may be a while!

Thanks Amy, for yet another challenge, that has challenged me!!

See you all next time

Dianne  :)