A Show of Hands

December 27, 2008

“I held a moment in my hand, brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower, a tiny sliver of one hour. I dripped it carelessly, Ah! I didn’t know, I held opportunity.” –Hazel Lee

This year, in my effort to not spend a lot of money I decided to make gifts–hence the jam. Another gift I made was soap. You wouldn’t think that making soap is easy but it really is. Michael’s Craft store has a whole section for Soap Making; I found the best soap materials–blocks, molds, fragrances, and colors–were by “Life of the Party.”

I decided to have some fun with soap and made what I called ‘hand’ ‘foot’ and ‘face’ soap. I must admit, though, that the ‘hand’ soap idea was not my own– I saw a shop owner on Etsy selling these hand soaps and it gave me the idea for mine. I won’t mention the seller’s name because I don’t want them to google their name and find that I copied them! But I’m not selling my soap so hopefully they wouldn’t be mad at me.

In any case, these are the soaps I made. Creepy but fun, huh?

The soap block melts in the microwave within 45 seconds. Then you add color and scent.

First are my ‘hand soaps’– I made a mold of a baby doll’s hand. These were about an inch or so tall.

Next are the ‘foot soaps’– again, baby doll foot as mold.

And finally here are the ‘face soaps’ I made. The mold for these was bought at Michael’s Craft store (where I’ve become a Gold Standard Member due to all the money i’ve spent there).

I put the soaps in these handy little bags and gave them to friends for Christmas. I think they would look great in individual jars in the bathroom-something very sterile and apothecarial-looking (I think I made up that word).