Blueberry swirl

Our house has been undergoing some computer and cable reorganization, my blogging time was compromised. 

I have been making soap lately.  I’m going to be in a Christmas craft sale in November.  It’s being held by HandmadeHarvest at the Old town hall in Almonte November 3&4, I will be there November 4, the Sunday.  Should be good!  I’m going to apply for a few more shows, we will see what happens. 

I have been experimenting with soap trying out some techniques that I learned in at the Handcrafted Soap Makers Guild conference last May.  There are a bunch of things I want to try, so watch this space. 

I have made mistakes in the past by making a huge batch of soap, only to find out I needed more practice with colour, the colour didn’t turn out the way I wanted or the recipe I used didn’t turn out the way I wanted, amongst other things, so I am now making smaller batches.  I am trying to document what I am doing, so if it turns out, I can recreate the batch and get the same results. 

I made a blueberry scented swirled soap, I think it turned out pretty well.  I make round soaps in recycled orange juice containers, I just peel them off the next day. 

I modified a technique that I saw on Bramble Berries’ website.  I poured the uncoloured soap in the mold first, then poured the colour into it, from a height.

I peeled the cans off the next day to see if i was successful.  I got some cool, circular patterns after I cut the soap into pieces. 

Unfortunately, the blue mica colour didn’t reach the bottom of the can, but it still smells good! 

I had wanted to do get this effect before, I thought I had to do something way more complicated.  I had made an orange and clove soap, and I wanted a circular, orange dot in the center of each round soap.  I had thought that the soap could only be poured into the mold when it acheived pudding consistency, this makes it very difficult to do any kind of colour techniques.  I had taken a spoon with the orange and shoved it down the juice can, the colour not reaching the bottom.  The I bought some flexible tubing, I was going to put that in the center of the soap and pour the orange down it.  Pudding does not pour well, poruing the soap into the tube was impossible, let along pulling the tube out and leaving the orange soap behind.  I did end up with some pretty neat soaps though.  

I am really happy with my results, more experimentation to come!