Favorite Soap Top Photo Challenge on Facebook

One of the reasons I set up these photo challenges, is because I think we can all work on our photography skills.  Even ugly soap can be made beautiful with the right angle, light and focus.  I encourage all of you to step outside your comfort zone and really play, flounder, hone in and improve your own setting-the-stage for your soaps. 

There were some amazing soaps submitted this week.  I am truly floored by some of the talent out there and are inspired by the images... the soap itself.  Again, this wasn't about the most beautiful tops (which there were dozens of amazing ones!), this was about photographing your favorite tops. 

Many of you have created a mood so deep, that it has successfully taken me to another place outside of my room.  As if I experience a few seconds on another plane, in a different time and space and if I were connected to a breathing machine or heart rate monitor, I'm guessing the images actually had a physical impact as well.  Not just creative thought.

Imagine for a moment: an image that you've seen that transformed your mood or gave you relief even for a moment.  Then get behind your camera and move around your subject until you FEEL something and click.  Then stay behind the lens and do it again.  And again.  I took a photography class in college and I was taught to examine images that gave me an emotion or took me to the past or rekindled a memory I had forgotten.  That is special when you can examine, then reexamine why it moved you.  Was it the light, the blurred background, the colors, expressions on faces, the unknown....what wasn't said?  All this works to tell a story.

Soap may not tell a story to most, but to us it has a history within ourselves.  Our hard work, our love for science or art, our sweat and tears and sometimes our feelings of worth.  These are our creations and because they are special, we need to deliver all of that information, emotion and love, outside of ourselves and into our image for others to view and experience.

These two are mine, though not thought provoking necessarily, but the first one has a sense of playfulness.

 Joanna Schmidt

SoapTops

Joanna Schmidt

Detox

So, without further ado, here are the photographs that moved me.  Not just beautiful soap, but a mood that captured my attention and took me from my own reality for a few seconds.

Clara Lindberg 

Creamy mohair and goat's milk soap with cinnamon & neroli.

 Kate Boisoneau

Poppet: smoky sweet caramelized sugar, roasted almond, rich cocoa, and airy, creamy marshmallow

 Hajni Kele

Witches Brew

Just because most of these are close-ups, doesn't mean those are the ones that are moving to me.  Lighting and focus have an impact as well.  The one interesting thing about macro shots:  it brings attention to details that are normally overlooked.  Many times it shows the care and beauty that isn't normally seen upfront.  It lures the viewer in and captivates them.

What are your thoughts?  Please share in the comments below...

xoxo Joanna

I'm Soap Stamp Crazy

I have been wanting a stamp for my soaps since I started selling my own.  Back when I had my retail shop, I had one made for me.  It was metal.  In reality, the letters were too small and made it difficult to read in the soap.  So I've waited until now to get one, and I'm just not that pleased with my options.  I was going to buy from Anhoki's etsy shop, but she and her husband, John, decided not to make them anymore.  (waaaaahh)



I wrote a post way back when on personalized soap stamps, which you could read about if you wish.  I shared a number of artist's stamped soaps there which are definitely worth looking at.

Well, now, I am stumped.  I could order from Owosso or Soap Equipment, but I believe they are quite spendy .  I found Bebe's Collection, but they are in Taiwan and I wanted to have it SOON.  I really love their style, though, if I do a totally custom stamp, it won't matter what their style is because it will just be a quality issue.  Their stock stamps are really cute, though and very reasonable!  See?

Bebe's Collection

As I was searching yesterday, I found this:  Ballyhoo Bath has a DIY soap stamp tutorial, which I may try, but I don't have the steadiest hands.  Great tutorial.  Great pictures.  I think anyone who wants to try their hand at making their own should go to her blog to check out her step by step stamp-making technique.  Here are some pictures:

 

finished product of a DIY stamp.  Beautiful!! 

then the process..

As mentioned in her post, she also suggests going to Tortuga Soaps as well as Instructables for other tutorials so that you can make up your mind which way you want to go.  Every soaper/artist has their own idea of how they want to customize and what medium they want to work with.  I have admired Ballyhoo's soaps from afar since I found them on the internet a year or two ago (?...memory is going O.O)

Now, if I could find some time, I may try this, but in the meantime, I'd like to find a custom soap stamp maker that is in the US, so shipping wouldn't be outrageous.  Or take a million years to arrive.

I also found Soap Impressions.  They do alpha stamp sets and custom ones, so I shall peek into that, too.  The more I think about it, the more I HAVE to have one!

Here are some soaps I think are stunning with custom stamps and alpha stamps:

 Jenora Soaps

Inner Earth

Naiad Soap Arts

So there you have it.  My thoughts on the many ways to make a stamp and many places to get them.  What do you think?  Have you gotten one you love that I haven't mentioned?  

*

Amber's Ambry & Her Little Blueberry, Too!

Amber's Blueberry goat's milk soap
(photo by yours truly on my patio)

So, I get this great package from my soap buddy, Amber, a few weeks ago. Nice soaps, beautifully wrapped, they smell wholesome and are decorated similarly. Looking at them made me want to eat more healthily, grow a garden, make my own paper and make homemade applesauce for goodness sake. I was even considering giving up my chocolate habit during that fleeting moment, but then I thought about my nightly ritual of eating Reese's peanut butter cups and decided that all natural, all the time just isn't for me. There is a time and a place for natural, but when I want junk, I can push a button and go for it. Especially when your chocolate gets into my peanut butter.

Back to Amber, her ruby shoes and her little blueberry.

I am not a huge fan of blueberry smells in the land of bath and body products (thinking Bath and Body Works and all that encompasses that place) and also TJ Maxx - all of the rejects from every other store in the U.S. and quite possibly products pushing their expiration dates. But Amber's soap smells true and blue. Blueberries are my favorite fruit, I'll have you know, and every time I got into the shower, I rubbed that bar all over and sniffed it sniffed it and sniffed some more. I couldn't get enough of that smell! I think I'll call it a heaven bar... with the perfect amount of poppy seeds. I think poppy seeds are under utilized in this world. They are not only cute, but they work so hard, especially for being so darn small.

My husband wrote a blog post recently about a loofah soap he found in our shower and how it felt like razor blades. If you want a laugh, go read it here. Apparently after reading all of the comments, it appears that the men are not big on exfoliation but women LOVE it. The rougher the better. Now, I would have thought it would be reversed. I know that about half the time, I like to exfoliate and I don't like it mild, either. So, Amber's blueberry packs the perfect poppy-punch because it isn't downright rough, but it's no where near mild.

In short: I love this Blueberry bar of goodness!

poppy-punch good

How cute is this muslin bag with the blueberry stamp that Amber carved out and made HERSELF?!



Oh come on, is there something this chick can't do? Oh yeah. Let me share with you some of the things she can do brilliantly:


She bakes:

She gardens. And well, too:
















She quilts:



She's a knitter extraordinaire:



She sews many beautiful aprons (I am an owner of one) Wish I had the photo of me wearing mine....so cheery.:



And she and her husband made these invitations and I really want to know how they did it. Perhaps we can ask her to do a tutorial or something...

This crafty chica is no woman to be dual-ling with at high noon with an art box.

*

Using Melt & Pour Toppings to Decorate Hot Process Soap

by Emmy Gabriel of The Natural Beauty Workshop

I was inspired to try something different while making a batch of soap for an autumn swap last year. I wanted to incorporate the beauty of autumn leaves into each bar, but I still wanted to create soap "from scratch" as opposed to using a full melt & pour recipe. I noodled over the puzzle for a while, but eventually inspiration struck.

Armed with clear Melt & Pour Soap Base, 3 cookie sheets, and a butter knife, I got to work. I split the Melt & Pour Soap into three batches after it was melted, scented each batch with Autumn Woods Fragrance Oil, and colored each with a different shade of Pearlescent Mica. I poured each batch of soap onto a cookie sheet, allowing them to cool into thin, solid layers. While I was waiting for them to cool, I quickly sketched out 3 leaf shapes onto card stock and cut them out. I used these cutouts as stencils, and carefully traced leaf shapes out of the Melt & pour soap with my butter knife. This would have been a LOT easier if I'd had the foresight to buy some mini cookie cutters, but "C'est la vie". My little leaves were well worth the extra work.

Once my leaves were finished, I whipped up a batch of hot process soap, also scenting it with Autumn Woods Fragrance Oil. I gave the soap a few minutes to cool after I had popped it into its mold, and then began to carefully insert my MP leaves into the top of the log. The soap was just hot enough to melt each leaf slightly as it entered the top of the soap. This helped adhere the leaves more permanently, but if the soap had been any hotter, it may have melted my leaves completely. Thankfully, I seemed to have caught it at just the right temperature. Should I repeat this procedure, I would definitely record the temperature of my HP soap log for future reference.

After covering the log in a forest of tiny leaves, I allowed the log to continue cooling. I spent the next morning excitedly slicing bars for my swap. The soap was so pretty that I almost hated to use my test bar, but I did! Autumn Woods lost a bit of its top note during soap making, but it rounded out into a very delicious, nutty scent. The Melt & Pour topping helped to boost the overall aroma by showcasing the untouched aroma of the Fragrance Oil, making the whole soap very enjoyable to sniff.

This technique offers just about as many combinations as you can imagine. Some things made of MP that I would love to see topping an HP log would be plant shapes, fruit shapes, or maybe some funky geometrics. I would be very curious to see what other folks come up with when they combine such different soap making techniques!

Thank you so much, Emmy! You are a true inspiration with all of the work you do, the beautiful photographs you take, and excellent ideas and recipes that you share at The Natural Beauty Workshop Blog. It's an honor to have you be here with me.

Soap Packaging

I've just sort of found my way. Perhaps it takes WAY too much time and I cut and paste, literally, but people are loving the Asian-inspired look. I buy patterned scrap booking paper from Michael's Arts + Crafts store and each type of soap gets different sets of paper. I'm having a lot of fun with this.

There are so many beautiful ways to wrap soaps: crepe paper, fabric, vellum, banana leaves, raffia string, plastic, gauze, paper, boxes, and some frightening things, too, I am sure.

What have YOU wrapped your soaps in if I haven't mentioned it in my list? I bet we'd all love to hear what you have to say.

Soap Dishes That Make A Statement

Nice dishes to think about for displaying all of those great soaps you will be buying or selling for the upcoming holiday season. I would be proud to have any one of these dishes in my home with any number of gorgeous soaps I have resting so comfortably on top.


soap dish made with recycled orange record album by RetiredRecords on Etsy

bottle soap dishes by the squashed bottle company
(I have seen these "melted" down bottles at lots of craft fairs. I never have bought one, but they are very cool and the clear ones look very nice with a wrapped soap bar)

handcrafted soap dishes from Idaho by treeworks

handmade stoneware by albaverde handmade soap

bamboo soap dish made in Brazil and available at nest

What's your favorite dish that you use for your daily soap??

Ultimate Ugliest Soap Contest Winner

Ultimate Ugly Soap (U.U.S.) contest challenged our soap maker readers to share their ugliest soaps with us as well as their pretty soap photos. I think it is important as crafters/artists to see that everyone has failures and there is no reason to give up (something I have to remind myself all the time). The winner (again!) is Heidi Bott of Soapaholics Anonymous blog. She has won one mocha espresso soap (4 ounces) one rose bubble slice (4 ounces), 2 citrus bubble bars (each weighing 3.5 ounces) and one of my short strawberry banana soaps (about 3-4 ounces) all made by me.

To share the photo love.....

Her uglies (she titled this "poop"):

Her pretties:


Thank you all so much for participating. I loved every photo you sent, but I'll tell you... not all the "Ugly Soap" snapshots were ugly. I will have more give aways, I promise. So stay tuned...

Artful Soap Dishes

Now that I review soap and only have three bathrooms, how can I sample all of the soaps simultaneously without soap dishes? I think I am in need of two or three soap dishes in each bathroom so I can choose a soap depending on what mood I am in. So, in my search for the ultimate soap dish that will eliminate the soggy bottom goo which is inevitably left on my sink that I must scrape up with my fingernails or credit card, I found these lovely and unique dishes.

I think soap dishes are underrated.

Bamboo and Terra Cotta Soap Dish, Measures 5" x 5" - amazon.com $12.95.

Stone dish, by dekco. Price... Rp.110,000.00 (?)

Ceramic dish, shown on the Magpie newsletter (cute stuff).

Soap Cakes

I am on such a sugar kick these days ...  It's kind of turning into a sad state of affairs.  Me + cake = Fatty Me.

So tonight I found some very luscious looking soaps that will not stretch the leather belt I'm wearing and they look so delicious that I'm starting to think I'm smelling freshly baked treats in my living room...  Maybe I am going nuts, but I smell (long inhale) frosting, I kid you NOT!

So here are three photos of soap cakes from My Primitive Boutique that will not stretch the waistline (unless you are eating cupcakes in the shower at the same time):

Coconut Lime Verbena

Pearberry 

Spice Trade 

My Primitive Boutique is an online shabby chic boutique filled with custom made signs, appliques, candles, clothing, gifts and, of course, these soap cakes.  Cheryl owns the shop and her "about me" page is filled with descriptions of the love for her family.  It warms my heart when people talk of their family with such adoration!

Here is a handcrafted ornament - yet another wonderful item she makes and sells...