Friday, June 28, 2013

Fourth of July-Making Soap


A couple of weeks ago I went and visited some family up in Wyoming. Among the many things that they do up there that I don't do here in Santa Fe is soap-making. They have a little company called Foam on the Range (yes, they too have a proclivity for bad puns). I tried to time my visit so that it would coincide with the spring production run, because I wanted to try out an idea that I first heard about from a customer who called Tech Support at Dover.
The caller was having a problem placing images into Microsoft Word, I was able to help them out, and when we were done I asked– "what will you do with pictures once you've printed them?" The customer informed me that they put the images into bars of soap. Now, at the time I knew two soap-makers, my sister-in-law, and Kalimah Rahim who was the owner of Essence Rare, in Boston. I asked them both what they knew about it. They just laughed.
I did a little of my own research, and found that there are lots of crafters who do this. I found some great instructions here:


http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/melt-and-pour-soap/soapylove-tutorial-loteria-soap-shrines-2/

Since using these instructions I've become a loyal subject of the Soap Queen. I am here minion, and I shall do her bidding...

As you can see, I didn't get quite as ambitious as she does on the post-soap embellishments, but I got the basics down. I went hunting for my younger niece and nephew to see what they thought of my efforts. I got one "cool" and one "would have been better with dinosaurs". I can do dinosaurs. This also gives me some great ideas for Halloween and Day of the Dead.

'Til next time...