Saturday, December 16, 2017

December 2017 Soap Challenge"Straight Lines Design"

This month's soap challenge offered by Amy Worden of Great Cakes Soapworks is called  "Straight Lines Design".  This soap challenge will be the last challenge by Amy as she has an exciting business opportunity, I am so happy for her, yet sad for not having another one to look forward to. I want to give a BIG thanks to Amy for making all these challenges available to us, I know it took a lot of work on her behalf. I also would like to thank all the people that stepped forward to teach us some really awesome techniques. I don't want to miss thanking all the sponsors each month and their generosity, and the monthly judges of each contest. I started Amy's challenges way back on March 2012 and it has been a fun opportunity and loved seeing all the other talented soap makers beautiful creations.

This is the instruction for this challenge: " Your soap must be made with cold process or cold process/oven process only, featuring straight lines in the majority of the soap. They may be horizontal, diagonal, or a combination of both. They must all be poured in one “session”. No embeds. You may have as many or as few straight lines as you wish, depending on your skill level and how the lines will best serve the overall design. The goals are straight lines and multiple layers, in that order." Well that sounds easy enough, but that turned out not to be as easy as it sounds. The hard part for me was waiting for each layer to set up so I could move on to the next color. It took a total of 5 hours just to get the layers poured on my 1st soap. Yes you read right, my 1st soap. I made a second soap and the results did not turn out as well as the first soap but that will be explained in a bit.
For my entry I chose Bramble Berry's "Pearberry" fragrance oil and it smells AMAZING! For my colors I used the following mica's: Super Pearly White, Cappuccino both from Bramble Berry, and Teal Vibrance from Nutures Soap Supplies. 

I am calling my soap entry for this challenge "Journey's End". ! I just can't thank Amy enough and I wish you all the best! As I shared my journey with everyone I hope you all have enjoyed it

Introducing my "Journey's End"



 
Here are my color choices.
I chose the pattern on the right for this soap.
 
 
 
First layer poured and the second color mixed for the next pour.
 

 
Second layer poured and the third color mixed for the next pour.
 
 
Here is my third layer and I will repeat all 3 color layers again.
 

 
The final layers are poured and the 2 remaining colors
will be the top swirl on the soap.
 
 
Soap in the mold and will go into a warm oven go force gel.
 
 
 

The soap is unmolded and ready to be cut into bars.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Here is my entry in the soap challenge:
 
"Journey's End"
 
 
 
 
Remember me mentioning the second soap I made. I wanted to put a gold mica line between each layer, but it did not work well on the first layer so I stirred the gold mica into the soap instead. Then the second layer of white  seemed set up enough to pour on the black and poured the white layer blended into the black layer so I tried swirling the two layers together and it took forever for this to set up enough to continue with the other layers. The next 4 layers went on like they were supposed to, but the very last layer of black did not set up correctly at all and I ended up planning most of it off.  One day I will give this color scheme another try but here is the end result.