Sept 2018 SMF Challenge - Carved Soap Designs Entry Thread

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This is the Official Entry Thread for the Sept 2018 SMF Challenge - Carved Soap Designs (Intaglio).

Please post your entry soap photos here. You may introduce your entry as desired, with a backstory or description of your soap, recipe, fragrance, experience with the technique or process also.

Please specify if you want a certain photo used for the voting survey. Otherwise, I will choose one of your finished soap photos.

Please do not add comments, critiques or compliments on this thread. This thread is limited to entries only. Comments about the entries should be posted on the original Challenge thread (here) and not on the Entry Thread. Thank you.

After the closing date (Sept 28th 11:59 pm EST) a URL and the password for voting at Survey Monkey will be sent to all members who signed up for the Challenge.

The winner will be announced on Sept 30th. There is no prize attached to this challenge.

Looking forward to seeing everyone's creations! :)
 
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My entry for the challenge:Bird on a Wire. I only had time for one try at this one due to travel plans (waving from Montreal), so I felt it would be best to keep my design more minimalistic. This soap was made all at once using a moderately accelerating FO blend of Sweet Cakes Naran Ji and Orange Blossom.
 

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Here's my September entry: Enso Enlightenment. I poured the top layer first with a tree ring pour (unsure of proper pour name) to create the blue/purple Enso design in the black then poured the base with The same pour in a graduation of yellow/orange/pink. The lotus on top finishes the zen feel i wanted for the soap. Fragrance was Pear Glace from Bitter Creek and accelerated slightly but didn't hinder the pour. September's been a busy one, but I'm glad I was able to do challenge, as I never thought of carving soap but am now inspired!
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My entry is scented with Black Raspberry Vanilla from Mad Oils. I poured the bottom layer as an ITP swirl, then put the black on top. I made the black way too thick, so I had to plane the bars down but still had quite a dig to get to the bottom layer. Cleaning up those edges proved to be a futile effort because I just kept messing things up. So it is what it is! :) It was really fun!
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I played around with a few different designs. The ideas in my head mostly involved woodcuts of citrus fruit. While I liked those, in the end, the simple avocado looked the best to me. New soap poured over an old bar. I used metal, wood, and rubber clay tools.

I post the rest of my attempts in the other thread.
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So.. this only took me an entire week to make.. :p
Since my dad helped me make my first (adjustable) wood mold - which I used for the first time for this challenge - and then also taught me a bit of basic wood carving and borrowed me his carving tools, I thought this soap should be dedicaded to him.
Ever since we lived in an arab country for my dads work for a few years (a very long time ago), he has been incorporating mosaics into our house, so I think he'll like a mosaic inspired soap. When we were living abroad, my dad was working with seafaring ships, so I thought it would be a nice hint to make this a brine soap. His favorite colors are blue and yellow, so I used indigo and annatto to color the soap and I also lightly scented it with pine EO (just enough to get a woodsy/foresty smell instead of a clean toilet smell to stick with the woodworking theme and because I ran out of cedar). Besides my dads woodcarving knife I also used a clay sculpting tool.
 
I think I'll call these soaps "relics", inspired by Mayan art. I used a 4lb. slab mold and poured 4 layers on top and 4 on the bottom with an ITP swirl between. I also added gold mica layers as well. Slicing through the center gave me 12 bars, they are scented with Fragrance Buddy's Sun and Earth. The Micas are mix-ups of various colors. The sandy look is from ground walnut shells on bottom and top. (I just love that stuff!) In the pics are the tools I worked with and found the most useful in getting clean (as possible) lines.I've had them for ages for clay work but you can pick them up at Michael's if you are interested. https://www.michaels.com/search?q=kemper mini ribbon tools The others are a variety of stylus tools. They really made a quick job of it, I carved them all in two evenings while I watched TV. I can never just sit and watch, I have to have something to work on. (no wonder shows I've already seen always seem new to me):confused:
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I think I'll call these soaps "relics", inspired by Mayan art. I used a 4lb. slab mold and poured 4 layers on top and 4 on the bottom with an ITP swirl between. I also added gold mica layers as well. Slicing through the center gave me 12 bars, they are scented with Fragrance Buddy's Sun and Earth. The Micas are mix-ups of various colors. The sandy look is from ground walnut shells on bottom and top. (I just love that stuff!) In the pics are the tools I worked with and found the most useful in getting clean (as possible) lines.I've had them for ages for clay work but you can pick them up at Michael's if you are interested. https://www.michaels.com/search?q=kemper mini ribbon tools The others are a variety of stylus tools. They really made a quick job of it, I carved them all in two evenings while I watched TV. I can never just sit and watch, I have to have something to work on. (no wonder shows I've already seen always seem new to me):confused:View attachment 32240 View attachment 32241 View attachment 32242
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I LOVE THESE!
 
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