Button Soaps

These little button soaps are so realistic looking!

A friend requested some button soaps.

She sells the best crocheted slippers on Etsy.

These are like the buttons she puts on some of her slippers.

Packaged and ready to go

These would make fun party favors or giveaways

Know any seamstresses who would enjoy receiving a few of these?

Have a wonderful week!

  Thanks for reading!

Happy Mother's Day

I’m so excited to finally get to share the pictures from the soaping morning with the kids at Plaid Peacock.  Thanks to Plaid Peacock for supplying me with these great pictures!

If you haven’t been to Plaid Peacock in downtown Waterloo, you really must go.  The restored building is absolutely beautiful, and the variety of Iowa art and products is sure to have something for everyone.

The classroom area is very pleasant, with plenty of space and a huge window looking out onto the Public Market across the street.

Now, back to the kids. 

A couple of the kids showed up a tad early, so they helped me with last minute preparations.  We also chit chatted and got to know each other a bit. 

Our first project was a soap the kids mad for themselves.  It was a practice soap so they would have some experience before making their gift soap.

They could choose between a fish or a robot.  While they were doing that, they waiting for me to microwave the glycerin soap base.  Once the base was melted, they added fragrance and stirred.  After putting their toy into the soap mold, they carefully poured soap over the toy.

Next we moved on to the gift soap.  I pre-made little soap spheres with glitter and the kids got to choose some for their soap. 

They put the spheres into a clamshell mold.  Then they waited for their cup of soap to get melted.  Once they had a cup of melted soap, they added some yummy pearberry fragrance.  After spraying the spheres with rubbing alcohol to help the overpour stick, they carefully poured their melted soap over the spheres.  The hardest part was waiting for the soap to set.

While we waited for the soap to set, they made another gift.  Each child got to make some bath salts.  I brought some little salts, kind of like table salts, that already had fragrance added.  Each child got a couple of spoonfuls of those, and then got a big scoop of larger sea salts.  These were placed into a yogurt carton. 

The lids went on and the kids shook shook shook the salts to get everything good and mixed.  Once things were pretty well mixed (it got kind of noisy!), we added a few drops of color to the salts.  I was fun to see the color choices.  There was some color combining going on, and all of the salts ended up with absolutely gorgeous color.  The kids noticed that some pieces of salt were darker than others. 

Oh, I just loved working with these kids.  It’s so nice to have such enthusiastic and interested kids. 

While we continued to wait for the gift soap to set, the kids made cards and gift wrap.  I enjoyed watching the creativity of these precious children.  While they made cards and gift wrap, we also talked about having another soap activity in June. 

 Plaid Peacock and I haven’t set anything up yet, but we would certainly love to do another morning of soaping with kids.  I better get going on checking my schedule to see when we can make that happen.  I hope the kids will come back and that a few more will come join us.  I'm also thankful that one of the moms stayed and helped out with the class.  She was a life saver!

Thanks for reading!

Little Retro Car Soaps

When you were a kid, did you play with little cars?  I spent many hours playing with little cars and building roads for them.  From that love of little cars come these retro little car soaps.

Aren’t they cute?  The cars are the perfect size for kid hands.  They are about the size of typical toy cars.  One car should last for at least one bath.  It might even last for two or three baths if it isn’t driven around the tub (or arms) too much.

The little car soaps would also be a great way to encourage hand washing.  Time for the kiddos to wash up for dinner?  They can grab a little car off the soap dish and scrub away!

I think kids would love washing up with these little car soaps. 

I just put a set of these up in my Etsy shop, and I'm anxious to see how they are received. 

Thanks for reading!

Soap On A Stick

Glycerin soap base offers endless possibilities for crafting and creating.  It's fun to work with and fun to try different things.  So far, I have made soap on a stick to resemble fudge bars, orange cream bars, semi-transparent popsicles, and swirled smoothie type bars.   

The name of this soap was inspired by the Iowa State Fair, where you can find all kinds of food on a stick.  Instead of food on a stick that you can eat, this is soap on a stick that your skin will love. 

The decorative and functional soap is made from a glycerin base that is full of lather and cleaning power.  With lots of natural goodness, this soap is sure to be a welcome treat for skin anytime of the year.  Soap on a Stick weighs 3 ounces and is the size of a regular Popsicle. 

You can see more about this fun soap at www.soapartonline.com.

Robot Toy Glycerin Soap

I made a test batch of these cute little soaps today. They are a great size for kids’ hands at 2.5x2x.75 inches. The child will be able to get to the robot after several hand washings. A prolonged soak in the tub will hurry that process along. I would guess that a determined child could find other ways to release the robot. I need to test these to make sure the robot holds up through everything. They are scented with a yummy berry fragrance that kids love.

The pictures aren't the greatest, as I took them on my counter with wax paper as the background : ) But they'll give you the general idea.

Do you like the clear soap surrounding the robot? Or do you think white or colored soap to partially hide the toy would be more appealing?