This month's challenge was about using impression mats to texture your soap. The mats could be store bought, like the ones used to decorate cakes, or made with silicone. I lacked the time to make my own or the money to buy the ready made ones, so I used some tiny ones that I already had from another of my crafty areas of interest: polymer clay.
I initially thought of a really tiny one I have that fitted perfectly across one of the cavities of the half cylinder silicone mould.
But I thought making 120 gr. of soap was not right, so I decided to make moulds for another couple of those mini impression mats.
But I thought making 120 gr. of soap was not right, so I decided to make moulds for another couple of those mini impression mats.
For all three of them I used the dry mica painting method:
Next time I will try to the other method, that is making the soap in two stages, first filling the concave areas of the impression mat with thick traced soap, and then placing that at the bottom of the mould and filling it up with the rest of the soap. The results of this method can be astounding, but I'm afraid I will have to exercise a lot more patience than I normally have, because I tend to ruin a lot of soap by unmoulding too early :-( and I suspect you need to wait quite a bit to avoid leaving half the soap behind in the mat.... or maybe try to bypass the waiting by adding a fair bit of salt ;-) We'll see.
Anyway, here are the results of my attemps. The first one is very much in the Christmas spirit, scented with a blend of frankincense and myhrr essential oils and a bit of sweet orange to brighten it up (I'm not a huge fan of myhrr and like to tone it down). Coloured with activated charcoal and having the mat dry painted with gold mica, for me it just embodies the gifts presented to baby Jesus by the Three Wise Men.
The next one was coloured with lovely pink ultramarine, but I made the rookie mistake of including orange x10 in the blend, which of course turned the soap batter orange :P . But the next day it had morphed to a quite lovely salmon colour, so I'm fine with that, plus I think it's a good match for the antique silver mica I used on the mat.
And the third one is a more colourful one. I don't think it is a particularly good looking soap, but I'm happy because it meant I made peace with indigo. It is not the blue jeans blue I've always tried to achieve with indigo and failed miserably because the soap either turned an ugly dark grey or stained when used. This time I used indigo that I had been infusing in light olive oil for weeks. I knew it would not be the dark blue I've seen in other soaps and loved, but I quite like this hue and I already have a couple of projects in my mind where I will be using it. Btw, the line in the middle is not a mica line, but a very fine soap line made with leftover soap from the first one coloured with activated charcoal.
I feel the photos do not do justice to the Three Wise Men soap, but I have decided it will be my entry for this month's challenge because it's my personal favourite out of the three.***
So... It's a good thing I got up early this Sunday morning! Oh, the joys of time difference. 6:20 am my local time and I wake up to an email from Amy that my soap entry does not comply with the guidelines because it hasn't been made in a log or slab mold. With about half an hour left all I can do is hope for the tiny molds I made for the other impression mats, even though small, to be considered as such. So I change my entry to my salmon coloured soap, which I honestly have not thought of a name for yet. This is as much as I can do at the moment. Good luck everyone!
Thanks everyone! Every month I learn so much from you and I never cease to be amazed by all the talent out there.
Cheers!
Anna
