Been awhile since I’ve succumbed to the siren song of Amy Warden’s Soap Challenge Club. Sometimes I MUST STEP AWAY from the email notification – not because they aren’t intriguing (they are!) or because I don’t want to learn more (I do!), but because these challenges are like the crack cocaine* of soaping – once hooked, I end up dropping EVERYTHING to participate. Cooking? NO! Sleeping? NEGATORY! Bathing? …er…well I do shower (I make soap, for chrissakes.) {Sigh} April’s soap challenge theme is Location, requiring participants to enter a soap design that reflects something special about where they’re from or presently living. Amy, a Kansas native, appropriately chose a Wizard of Oz-themed soap as an example. Her reasoning is that once people hear she’s from...
November 2015 Great Cakes Soapworks Challenge: Tall and Skinny Shimmy I won’t lie, I’m on the fence about this technique. It took FIVE tries before I was able to get something decent enough to enter. Why was this challenge so…challenging? The goal of the technique – which btw, looks quite intriguing when done correctly – is to have a thin, “shimmying” line of contrasting color run up the center of the soap. You can see an example of this on my entry soap to the L (“Picasso’s Breakfast”), starting at the bottom where the green color snakes between the yellow and white, then the white curls between the yellow and green, and the thin line of yellow passes between the white and green to the top....
I won my first EVER Blue Ribbon (First Place) for a product a few weeks ago in the Soaps and Lotions category at the 2015 Denver County Fair. Yee HAW! (as we Westerners say). 😉 OK – not to sound super horn-tooty or anything, but this win was significant for a couple reasons: I need to continually “put myself out there” when it comes to something I want to grow. It’s not always easy, but it’s necessary. We all – not just artists – have to stretch our comfort zone to stay engaged with life. Sometimes, (more often than you’d think, in my case), we need to develop a thicker skin re: not being understood. Such a BURDEN being ahead of the curve! There’s no guarantee that you’ll get...
As an artist in any medium, you have to keep things fresh. Those of us suffering from the “Oh, SHINY!” syndrome never lack ideas. Frankly, I often have to keep away from soap challenges or I’d spend my time doing nothing BUT. However, sometimes learning a new technique is so compelling that I just can’t resist – so along with about 160 of my global soap making compatriots, I signed-up for Amy Warden’s Great Cakes Soapworks August 2015 Challenge: the Mantra Marble Technique (MMT). Here’s Amy explanation of MMT, which she cheerfully credits to Erica Pence of Bath Alchemy Lab: “Mantra Marbles is a technique that combines Ebru paper marbling with the mantra swirl in a slab mold using horizontal dividers. Half of each bar is...
Hallelujah, hallelujah! I’ve found “my people” and they do SOAP CHALLENGES! In October, I heard from Amy of Great Cakes Soapworks, who offered a chance to join her monthly soap challenge club. For a nominal fee, members receive a an artsy soaping tutorial, along with deadlines for submitting your creation to post for community viewing/voting, and the chance to win fun, soap-related prizes. November’s theme was soap “combing” techniques, which I had been wanting to learn anyway. What is this “soap comb,” you ask? It’s a very complex tool used to carve intricate designs in soap – KIDDING – it’s actually a simple but brilliant tool that you can make yourself with cardboard, skewers, and packing tape (though it is used to create designs). Some soap suppliers carry manufactured ones that are sturdier and more accurate,...
