This month’s challenge over at Amy Warden’s Great Cakes Soapworks was to make a soap with embeds, ie soap with different shaped/coloured soap embedded within in it. One of the examples Amy used in her tutorial was this beauty:
Isn’t it gorgeous?
I wasn’t going to enter the challenge this month as we move next week (are you bored of hearing about it yet? 😉 ) but I do like getting involved so decided to whip up something simple at the last minute, just so that I could take part. I’ve already taken a peek at some of the other entries and there are some absolutely stunning creations, I’m a little embarrassed to post my little simple soap, but hey ho – I might win the booby prize :0)
Back in 2012 I made a soap that was really popular, called Bubblicious:
and I thought it would be a quick and easy one to replicate for this challenge.
So I made up two small batches of soap and coloured one pink and one lilac. After about 24 hours I unmoulded them and started to roll different sized balls out of both colours:
This soon became ridiculously laborious and I realised I could probably get exactly the same effect if I rolled lengths of soap like these:
I then made up a larger batch of soap and added titanium dioxide to make it nice and white. I fragranced it with a lovely floral blend of Rosewood and Ylang Ylang essential oils.
I then simply poured a small amount of soap into the bottom of the mould, laid some balls in and covered them with the white batter, then repeated until the mould was full, making sure I kept enough balls back to decorate the top of the soap. Voila:
And here are the cut bars:
Very simple, but a nice effect nevertheless. There are so many ways to play about with this technique, I’ll definitely be making many more embed soaps in the future.
Thanks, as always, go to Amy Warden for organising the challenge and giving us all an opportunity to drool over each other’s creations :0)
Amy, I like your soap ropes technique for the inside rounds. That’s so much easier and really the same look.
Thanks Michelle – it is sooooo much easier that way!
I love the two colors together! What a great idea to use the logs instead of the spheres. Saves quite a bit of time!
It saves oooooodles of time – it was a bit of a lightbulb moment that one 😀
Beautiful, Vicki! Love its delicate design!
Thanks Natalia 🙂
That’s how i make mine, when want spotted look. I roll the balls only if I have ends and cuts which cannot be rolled into logs. Quite simple and yet, effective, right? The soap looks so girly, almost baby-like, I love soft, pastel colours and white base. You really did excellent job.
Looking forward to seeing your new soap atelier at new house! Good luck with your move, Vicki!
Thanks so much Maja – the first phase of the move is now complete (which is why it’s taken me so long to reply to these comments…) We’re now staying with my mum while we look for a place of our own to buy – exciting times!!
Beautiful! Love how you rolled the cylinder shapes and still got the same effect, great job!
Thanks – can’t believe I rolled so many balls before I realised that the logs would do the same thing lol…
Simple is still fun!!! Yes, the log idea is brilliant! I forget that even logs can be rolled by hand – duh!! 🙂
Simple is absolutely still fun :0). Thanks Amy…
Storing your log idea in my mind – gotta try this! Your colors are beautiful together – such a clean look!!
Ah thanks Suzy – get rollin’ them logs 😀
Good idea to make the long round spheres. I love the simplicity of your colors and the look.
Thanks Cris 🙂
I can remember one time when I sat there and roll all kinds of soap balls..and then I got a comment from Maja, from Diva Soap, that I can also have the same results by making the soap logs 🙂 LOL! Now I roll my little logs. Beautiful soap by the way!
Lol Roxana – kinda obvious when you realise isn’t it! I was getting so bored of doing those balls, big ones and small ones – I was so pleased with myself when I realised I could just do different widths of logs instead 😀
Dumb question but do you just cut the pieces of logs into smaller pieces to make the balls? I think your soap looks really fantastic and it’s a great way to show off embeds. Really nice work Vicki.
Hey Monica! Not at all dumb 😀 Before realising I could just do the logs I was making all the balls individually by pulling off a small piece of the (still quite soft) soap and rolling it. You could absolutely just cut up the logs into smaller pieces though – that would work well for the ones that go on the top that you do want to be spheres.
Beautiful, Vicki! I have a few balls lying around but they’re probably too dry already to make into embeds. Thanks for the tip on making them into logs.:-)
Thank you Sivia! Apologies for the delay in responding by the way – I’ve been so busy with the move, and then I got tonsilitis which meant I spent 2 days in bed. All back to normal now though 🙂
Also loving the log idea and just using balls on the top. Lovely colours, too
Thank you so much – and thanks for visiting my blog 🙂
This is really nice “bubbly” soap! I love how it turned out!
Thank you Andee!
Well planned and very pretty!
Thanks Janie 😀
Gorgeous, Vicki! The embeds look like bubbles floating in the bar. Good luck in the challenge!
Thanks Jenny! It’s always good fun to join in the challenges, and some of the entries were just stunning!
I love it!!! And so clever to roll the long ropes, a time saver for sure! Great soap Vicki!
Thanks Cee 😀