Some good ideas on free molds

Check the video below. He has some good ideas for creating your own molds with available materials, and a good source of inexpensive liner material.


Well, my mold has not arrived and I don't even think it's been mailed yet, so there goes my February spin swirl soap challenge.

Had a bad night last night, either food poisoning or lord knows what; but I'm going to take it super easy today and do absolutely nothing that can wait one more day. It will be a good day to watch soaping videos, and maybe try to edit my last soap making video.

I recently bought a new version of photoshop which has a video editing software, so I'll give that a try and see if I can make sense of it.

Delayed arrival of my slab mold

Looks like my new 9 bar slab mold with divider may not be arriving in time for me to have an entry in the swirling slab mold soap challenge this month. I only saw a note from the maker on Etsy Friday and ordered it immediately, but a followup on my part, found out that she was out of town Monday and said it she would be shipping orders sometime this week.

I would have to have my entry in before the 22nd, so it's doubtful that I can make it. Even though it's doesn't look like I will be able to make it in time, I will try that swirl when I get the mold.

My saved boxes that I use to cover some soap molds seemed to have gone walkies. So I will have to check my recycle bin and she if my cleaning lady thought they were trash and put them in there. There may be a slim chance that one of them can be lined and used as a mold.

This is my last day this week to have a warm, dry afternoon for planting, then we'll be back to rain and cooler temperatures for about five more days.  I'll head to the garden right after lunch and till then I will re-do my recipe for the 9 bar mold.

Someone on the soap forum who has the mold helped me out and said she uses 47 oz of oils, but since I want to cut the soap horizontally, I want to make the soap about 2 1/4" high instead of 2". If it looks like it will spill when spinning, then I always have some oval and other small molds ready to take any excess batter if necessary

Since this new mold is wood, I will have to line it, so I'll try to get the paper cut tomorrow and weigh out my oils and have everything ready to go in case the mold arrives in time. Once it's shipped it's only coming from Washington, which is just north of me, so I'll hope for the best.

Well, time to get out my recipe and load soap calc and get the recipe in there and printed out.

Black and white challenge

Last month I participated in a black and white soap challenge and here was my entry. I couldn't execute it precisely as I had planned, because I had difficulty estimating just how much of each color I would need to do it. I thought a 60/40 of white and black would work, but wound up not having enough black to reach the bottom of the black and white top, nor enough to make a more abundant black swirl in the white panel. Next time I'll do 50/50 or even do 55 black and 45 white.

I'm waiting for a 9 bar slab mold to be made. It should be ready sometime next week and  I'm hoping it arrives in time for a swirl challenge I signed up will take another week, I imagine, to arrive here. My entry for the swirl challenge is due in about two weeks, so it's going to be close. Also on order is a Bud, single bar wire soap cutter, which should be here around the same time or sooner.

Planting is taking to priority at the moment. These bare root plants don't like to hang around too long without getting planted. Two days ago, I planted 25 ever bearing strawberries. I have June bearing ones on order that should be arriving soon; and I have several berries, roses and perennials that I've bought the past two days, all bare root, that need to get planted in the next couple of days. Fortunately, we are due for about four or five sunny, days in the 60's, so I should get it all planted this week.