DIY Soap

Christmas is terrible.  You always spend too much and people don’t want the crappy scarf you bought them for $50.  No matter what they say.  Instead spend time with your family and friends and stop buying crappy presents, unless you are rich.  Then indeed buy away.  I will gladly take a diamond tennis bracelet for a present.

As Christmas time was rolling around this year I decided I didn’t want to focus of the material value and commercialization of what Christmas normally is to people nowadays.  In place of buying things that leave much to be desired in my loved ones life and leave my bank account empty, I was going to create items that would make this time of year less stressful for me.  With less stress I may actually have some holiday spirit instead of spending obscene amounts at the mall with worry. I decided I was going to place a value on what I created for the time that I put into them. 

TLDR: Christmas sucks now so I handmade all of my presents this past year for under $60 total.

So let’s get to crafting

Items needed:

·         Glycerin Soap

·         Essential oils (fragrance)

·         Molds

·         Small toys or inserts

·         Microwave safe bowl

I bought pre-made soap bars that you can melt in the microwave.  Simply cut in cubes and toss in a microwave safe bowl.  Then microwave for the time indicated on the instructions.

Once out of the microwave add whatever fragrance you choose.  I picked vanilla and grapefruit essential oils as I already had those on hand.

Add inserts/toys into molds and slowly pour soap over them.

Once dry you will be able to pop out.

Drunk Proof It or ways it could have been better.  This is drunken arts and crafts not artisanal arts and crafts.  These are crafts that I try and sometimes fail at.  I am not a professional.  Please try it at home; results may vary if you are sober.

1.       Most of the soaps seemed “bubbly” probably from stirring in the essential oils too quickly.  Go Slow

2.       If I wasn’t trying to keep the budget so low I would also have also sprung for some soap dye / coloring.  The vanilla did tint the soap.

3.       These molds were tipsy.  If I had it to do over again I would have purchased a completely flat mold.  It would have also been doable if I had a sandbox or something along those lines to set the mold in while pouring and drying.

4.       I found that while microwaving the sides quickly became hard while stirring in the essential oils.

5.       I didn’t check the size to mold ratio on some of the inserts. This meant that Woody’s hat stuck out the back of his soap mold.

6.       Last tip don’t wrap these in tissue paper as it will stick.  Wrap in wax paper or put in an cellophane wrapper.

I hope this helps.   This was probably the most expensive of the Christmas crafts as I had to buy the soap, molds and inserts.  The mold was about $5, the soap around $9 and the inserts were less than $1 each.

You can see the rest of the cheaper sets from this past Christmas to come on the blog later this month.

Btw:  I only went to the mall once during the Christmas season to get photos taken with Santa.  This made me happy.