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August Soap Challenge Club 2015: Marbled Mantra Swirl

Hello Everyone!!!

 

So here we go again. Another Soap Club Challenge! Yay! I am so happy with the results. I wasn't at first, but the more I look at the cut bar the better I feel about it. I used the 6" silicone slab mold from Bramble Berry. It is pretty much the only slab mold that I have and I love it. Its very nice for personal use. Especially with the challenges.

 

Ok so lets get to the method of the challenge. As you can see by the title it was the marbles mantra swirl and boy is it a beautiful swirl. You have to divide the mold into three section with the two outer sections smaller then the middle section. You have a solid color in the middle section, and on the outside their is the section were the colors are swirled as you can see in the picture below.

 

I did the nonperail, I think that's how you say it, and I did it with a comb device that I made out of skewers and cardboard. Really easy to make. After all the soap it in I comb through with my little skewer device and then took the end of a large spoon and swirled with an infinity pattern. 

 

So there you go those are the cut bars. Like I said before I like them now and I can't wait to clean them up. 

 

Thanks for stopping by!!!! 

Lemon Mint Natural Handmade Soap

Here it is!! My first natural soap bar with essential oils. This bar has an essential of blend of lemon, lemongrass, and peppermint. I absolutely adore this blend. I just cannot stop smelling it. I wanted to do this blend becuase it is one of my all time favorite drinks. I love to drink anything that has the combination of lemon and mint. So I just knew the smell would be awesom. I only made a small batch because it was my first time using essential oils. The blend worked wonderfully in the soap batter and I can't wait to soap it again. Here are some pics.

So there you have it. I love it, and I can't wait to try it out!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

-BigLady

Great Cake Soapworks May Challenge 2015

It's that time again!! Yay!! Let me just start by saying that this challenge really was a challenge for me. Lol! I love desserts and there were so many different choices to choose from. I chose to creat some of my favorites and create some that just came to mind. Hope you enjoy!

Mini Neapolitan Dessert Tray

I started by making the base soap to all my desserts. I made the colorants first, which were a deep brown to mimick chocolate, pink-red for the strawberry and white for the vanilla and whipped cream. I also made some melt and pour chocolate and strawberry squares for some toppings. Along with a melt and pour neapolitan bar to shave off for more toppings.

(My colors: TD, brown oxide, mixture of pink vibrance mica and iron oxide)

(Melted chocolate to add to the brown soap)

(I used unsweetened chocolate so that I wouldn't have acceleration)

(the mini glasses from the dollar store)

My first dessert is a Mini Neapolitan Parfait. I personally love to eat these for breakfast, but they can be change for a dessert too. I bought some little clear glasses at the dollor store. I mixed all my strawberry and chocolate "pudding" and "whipped cream" together and got to layering. In the chocolate soap I added the real melted chocolate.

(before adding the real chocolate)

(after adding the real chocolater. YUM!!)

Boy did this give the chocolate a real look to it. My family didn't believe it was soap! Ha Ha!

(after finishing the different layers

I started with chocoloate pudding, then strawberry, and then added whipped cream. I repeated this layering process until I got to the top. I finished the dessert off with a dollop of whipped cream and some neapolitan shavings. On another parfait I added chocolate chips and strawberryy pieces.

(All finished!!)

Like I said before I love parfait and the chocolate "pudding" looked so real I deceided to make a regular chocolate cup with whipped cream on top. I added some grated chocolate soap to the top and gave a dusting of cocoa powder. Looks so yummy to me!

(Chocolate Cre`me w/whipped cream)

(All Done!!)

My second dessert is probably one of my favorites of all time, cheesecake. I used the Brambe Berry 12 cavity silicone mold to make this dessert.  I made these Mini Neapolitan Cheesecake Bites with a chocolate crumb crust with a strawberry cheesecake filing with regular cheesecake swirled into it. I finished this dessert of with some strawberry drizzle and a large dollop of whipped cream.

(Strawberry soap poured over chocolate base)

White cheesecake swirled with strawberry filling, all cp)

(All finished!!)

The third dessert I made was Mini Chocolate Sandwich Cookies. These actually took two days to make. I let the chocolate soap thicken a little and I added it to a pipping bag and piped out the top and bottoms of the cookies. The next day I made some white cp soap for the vanilla cookie cream. I let it thicken and then piped it onto the cookie bottoms and sandwiched them together. Viola!

(Day 1: Piped tops and bottoms)

(Day 2: Piped vanilla cream to make sandwich cookies, all cp)

The fourth but definitely not least dessert I made is another one of my favorites. Mini Neapolitan Chocolate Truffles. These were more work then I thought I would have to do. Ha! These also took two days to make. I first poured some of the realistic chocolate soap that I made at the beginning into a mold and let it sit overnight.

(Poured chocolate cp for truffle filing)

(Cut up truffle bites (right) ready for dipping)

The next day I whipped up some more cp soap in chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla (all cp).

I took the bar of chocolate soap I made and cut it into many bites. I then took the mini bites and dipped it into the colored soap. That really didn't work for me so then I let the soap get thicker and I slowly poured it onto the bites and let it fall over the sides. To finish the truffles off I put neapolitan shavings on some, piped some chocolate on a couple, and layered some pink himalayian salt on the rest. Just like those salted truffles from the stores, YUM!!

(The white chocolate and milk chocolate truffles w/neapolitan shavings, pink salt, and piped ganache)

(All finished and ready to eat!!) 

 I really liked how these turned out since they were the hardest and at first I didn't think I was going to finish them. Ha! 

So there you have it! My mini desserts all together. I loved this challenge and I have to say its my favorite so far. Thanks for stopping by! See ya next time!

-Biglady

Himalayan Lavender and Cedar Handmade Salt Bar

First time I saw a salt bar was watching Soaping 101's instruction video. She made a bar that used activated charcoal and kaolin clay as the colorants. I thought it was so chic and cool. I just couldn't wait until I got the chance to make one. Here I present to you my very first salt bar. I used the same recipe as Ms. Cathy did in her video. Now I'm not selling this so I think it is ok to use.

The recipe was cut in half so I only got three bars which I think is perfect for self use. As you can probably tell by the name I used a fragrance oil called Lavender and Cedar that I received as a sample in my latest Brambleberry order. Smells beautiful!! I also used their 12 bar rectangle silicone mold. Which gave me this prefect shaped bars. I absolutely love the size of these bars. Prefect fit in my hand, and perfect shape. I didn't use clays for my colorants. I used utramarine lavender pigment and natural soap batter. The  color was of course inspired by the name but also to the fact that purple/lavender is my favorite color. :-) The salt that I used was Pink Himalayan Sea Salt tha I also got from BB.

After double pouring the mixture into the mold I thought I would leave it but I decided to do a quick Taiwan swirl to finish them off. I have to honestly say that for my first time I think I did a pretty good job. I have so many ideas running through my head for the next salt bar. Can't wait!! :-)

February Soap Club Challenge: DNA/Helix Swirl

So here she is! This is my entry to the February Soap Challenge Club. We had to try the DNA/Helix swirl this month and let me tell you is was a challenge for me. I decided to keep my same colors from last month challenge which were titanium dioxide for white, activated charcoal for black, blue vibrance mica and pink vibrance mica. In this particular soap I kept the bottom natural so the colors on top could pop. The fragrance oil used was Black Raspberry and Vanilla. I added the four colors to the squirt bottles and started the design on top carefully. After all the colors were on I did small 's' swirls from side to side. Then made larger 's' swirls from top to bottom. That was the hard part, but I think I did it. I am very proud of myself. What do you think?! :-)