Happy Wednesday.
The project I am sharing today you can find in the Spring 2016 issue of Willow and Sage.
I figured I better share it before the summer issue comes out.
Last summer I spent a morning making melt and pour soaps.
Looking at the pictures, I can almost smell them.
The great thing about melt and pour soaps is how easy they are to make.
And you can use just about any container for a mold as long as you treat it to release the soap.
Once the soap is made, the best part is the packaging.
I wanted my soaps to have a rustic look.
This is the Gardener's Delight bar.
Off to the woodshed for a log....
Then to my husband's garage to use his saw.
I ended up using his drill press too for the holes.
His suggestion and it made the process much easier and faster.
All the rest of the packaging details came from my studio/garage.
Sometimes the prettiest pictures take in the tiniest details.
I gave a bunch of these soaps to my dear friends at work at Christmas time.
Looking at these photos makes me long for summer days.
They will be here before you know it.
In the summer, anyplace is a work area for me, especially outside.
Our days are getting longer.
It is not warm enough consistently to feel like spring is definitely here to stay.
But there are other signs...
Our grass could use a cutting.
In the morning I can hear the birds singing.
Some flowers are coming out and blossoming.
And the fish in our pond come lazily to the surface and swim about.
We are almost there...
To finish the packaging, I made tags for each kind of soap with polymer clay.
I love the way the tags turned out...
And then I just stamped them with tiny alphabet stamps as well.
I used a bit of watered down black paint in the letters to make them stand out.
They are among my favorites because I use my fingers and get dirty when I use them.
So, before it is no longer available on the newsstand, run out and pick up ma copy of Willow and Sage Spring 2016 issue to see how to make these and many more fabulous bath and body products.
