Skip to main content

A Bramble Berry Christmas part 3

I'm halfway done showing you my creations....I hope one will inspire you in your own Christmas soap projects!

Here are the next three:

Christmas Forest  Of all the scent in the collection, this one just shouts "Christmas" to me.  It's such a perfect pine-y scent and reminds me of those years when the family Christmas tree came from the "back yard" (the acres of woods) instead of a box in the garage (so shameful...). 


I made embeds with green chrome oxide and used the same color as an in-the-pot swirl.  (Handy hint of the day: line your embeds up carefully so they'll actually show when you slice them.  Obvious, I know, but somehow I muffed it and this scuffed up slice has the only exposed tree of the batch.  But this way the tree will be a surprise part of the way through use, which will be kind of fun, too.)

Christmas Spice  Most people that stop by my house inevitably wind up in my soap room sniffing my latest creations; it's kind of expected, really.  This super-spicy scent (it would make an awesome candle) was a hit.  I decided to go with icy pastels for decorating this batch.  I want to think about this idea and make them again--I've already thought of some more designs and some modifications, like adding "loops" to make them look more like ornaments.



Peppermint Essential Oil (2nd distillation) The Bramble Berry website mentions that this oil has a candy cane-like scent and it really does!  It's so good.  I decided that I wasn't going to do my standard, tried and true merlot mica swirl this time.  My first thought was to add a swirl of green, but that's not exactly a revolutionary twist for a Christmas soap.  Then I dredged up a vague distant memory from high school art class and used variations on red and green.....



The result were some eye-popping, blindingly vivid colors (made with hydrated chrome green (again) and electric bubble gum).  I suspect this soap will glow in the dark and serve double-duty quite handily as a bathroom night light.

One more post of my Bramble Berry Christmas soaps!  (And it includes my favorite soap of this project.)

Comments

  1. Those Christmas Spice soaps are cute as a button, I love them! I had the same idea for the tree cutouts I did recently but decided I wasn't capable of figuring out how to line them up so they'd show when I cut and probably cause mondo air pockets, haha. That's a great way to think of the "tree surprise" as you use it though haha! Also, lol @ bathroom night light. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, well, I'll have to work on this embed concept. I did it last year and they were spot-on, so I thought they were easy. ha!

      Delete
  2. Just read through all 3 of your Christmas posts - WOW! What a great line-up for the season. Can't wait to see the next ones!

    ReplyDelete
  3. These holiday soaps are gorgeous, too, Amy! Sounds like we're making some similarly-scented soaps lately - I also just made a soap using a Christmas Tree-type FO, and I used BB's 2nd distillation Peppermint EO in another soap. (I like the 2nd distillation, too - it is a bit more menthol-y than the 1st.) The little tree embeds are so cute, and it will be such a neat surprise when they reveal themselves as they are used. The ornament soaps are precious and I love the colors in the Peppermint swirl!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks so much, Jenny! I'm thinking a hot chocolate soap next--how does that work for you? LOL I'm in such a Christmas soap mood!

      Delete
  4. Wow! These look great! Wonderful idea on the Christmas Spice soaps. That would be cool if the peppermint soaps were glow in the dark!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! :) It would be cool--I have never made such a bright colored soap before!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Soaping with Madder

I know that any color added to soap can morph into a surprise, but there is an added element of unknown when using botanicals to color my soap.  Some people jump out of planes or ski off mountains, but this is how I live on the edge these days.  Hmm.  If I weren't having so much fun, I'd be embarrassed. I recently had my first go with madder.  So....whatsa madder?  It's a root--the root of the madder. Ahem. (I love puns...) I infused 8 oz. of olive oil with 2 t. madder root powder for almost a week.  This amount worked out to be 20% of the oils in my batch. I wanted something in the way of embeds to add visual interest.   I dearly love my soap balls but I don't want to over do a good thing.  I've recently done square-shaped embeds, so this time I cut a bar of white soap into slices. I panicked a little that it wouldn't get dark enough--it was kind of a dusty peach--so I added 1/4 t. dried powder right before pouring. Madder powder can get a little

Soap Challenge--Piping

I'm jumping into Amy W's soap challenge here in week 3--piping soap.  I chose to make a version of a batch I made last year--my Sweet Pea scented soap.  It was really popular for me last summer so why mess with a success? Some soapers assume that piping soap means that it must be whipped, but it's not necessary to whip it first.  When I don't want the whipped look (or more frequently, don't want to clean beaters) I just let it sit until it thickens up on its own.  (By the way, don't you adore these itty-bitty dishes?  I just bought them a few weeks ago. A set of four cost $1 at the Dollar Tree!) I used a Wilton tip #3 to make the little squiggles. I added tip #103 sweet peas and made leaves with a # 352 tip. One thing I love about piping soap....it never leaves even a trace of ash to spoil the design.   And then I took lots of pictures (it was a rather photogenic batch).  Here are a few-- These will be cured enough to have them at t

Soap Challenge--Dandelion Swirl

This Great Cakes challenge started off, well, challenging for me.  I had internet problems (a lack of it) and something went rather tragic in my attempt to cobble together a recipe without access to my online lye calculator crutch or a good saponification chart.  Obviously, I need to work on this skill, since my first batch of soap is still not firm enough to cut.  I've seen firmer marshmallow cream.  I'm estimating that I'll be able to cut it in a week or two or maybe three. The top came out pretty, though, didn't it? Sigh.  I wonder what the inside looks like. On to batch number 2.  I went for a winter/snowy theme this time, scented with BB's Fresh Snow fragrance. I made a small 6-bar batch.  I kept noticing that my divider (a dollar store cutting mat) didn't stay in the center but kept migrating toward the edge with every pour.  I was concerned that it would ruin the design, but it held well enough. I know this challenge was all about the inside,