When Things Get Complicated, Keep It Simple (Easter Tutorial!)

The other day I was grocery shopping and passed by the Easter section. There was a great display with molds on it, so of course I bee-lined it right over.  It turns out that Jell-o offered two 4 cavity molds for FREE with the purchase of 3 full sized Jell-o products.  They didn't have to ask me twice!

Later, when I got home and checked out my score, I realized that these molds were WAY too detailed to fill with multiple colors.  It would take the patience of a saint, so I had to rethink my plan.

First, I got out my bowl of scrap soaps.  Every time I make a project I pour my left overs into my silicone heart mold.  It's great to have tons of colors handy for times like this.  When I want to experiment I just pop a few in a cup, zap them, and I'm ready to go.

I decided that for molds like this, it would be best to keep it simple.  This is not usually my approach as you know!  Here is what I made:

First, I made the marbled soaps.  These are super easy and fun!  Take two separate cups of soap (as cool as you can), colored with non-bleeding colorants, and pour them simultaneously into the mold.  Do a blob here, a blob there, to make different areas of color. It might be a little messy and the back might look kind of worrisome, but the front will be great! 

Next I did a batch of natural ingredients.  One is white soap with lavender colored ground loofah stirred in, and the other is cream soap with Calendula petals.  I like how the texture makes them interesting without hiding the details of the mold.

Next, I decided to choose one detail that was the cutest from two of the molds.  One was the yellow beak on the duck (chick?  My son and I had a little debate about this).  Just drop a bright color to highlight that feature and then fill the rest with a pastel version of that color.  Easy and sweet!

Finally, my favorite method for making very special soaps with that super colorful look - brushing with mica.  This would be great for kids because the color goes on gradually and they use a regular paint brush.  The basket has so much texture that it's perfect for this technique.

Make some soaps in solid colors.  Then take a dry brush, dip in mica (any color, and it doesn't need to be non-bleeding), dab on a napkin to get off the extra, and brush on!  I used copper sparkle on the basket and a mix of other shades for the eggs.  The Opalescent colors make very pretty egg colors. You can even use glitter!  If you get the Bramble Berry mica sampler, you'll have a great selection.

There you have it!  A handful of easy methods to use super detailed molds.  Have a great day!

(Don't forget to check out the great line of Soapylove supplies available at Bramble Berry!)