Guest Blogger: Reflections: 3D Art Activity by The Dog Walker

My Mom asked me to guest blog for her about this fun activity that I did with Scout, Curly, and Baby Doll on Sunday of this week. Remember the time I talked about the Troom Troom show when I showed you the homemade giant candy bars that I made for birthdays? Well, the show has shown me another fun thing that I could try doing and I also thought it would go perfect for the 3D Art activity that my family does for Reflections: making unique bars of soap.

I was watching some of the demonstrations of how the girls on the show were making bars of soap that were so unique that you can hardly find them at any store, but that you can make something like that at home. My mind went a bit blank, wondering where can you buy a brick of soap base that you can use to make some interesting bars of soap? When I kept thinking of it, I looked up online and saw that soap base can be bought at Hobby Lobby, and you can also buy different silicone molds that can be used for baking or molding projects.

I made a unique bar of soap that was blue colored, with a bit of white and yellow on it. I made it look like a little Book of Mormon and I gave it to Crafty as an early birthday gift. I thought it was the perfect gift that she can use for her mission. She's really excited to go on the mission. When Crafty and I showed it to the family, they were very impressed and wondered if that was the newest hobby/project I thought of making for people's birthdays, instead of making the high-calorie candy bars.

For the past few months, after learning that the Reflections theme this year was "Look Within," I thought it was the perfect choice of something that the kids can make for 3D Art. Baby Doll was excited to try making a bar of soap that has never been seen by anybody before, and Curly and Scout felt the exact same way.

I showed them the different kinds of flavorings and food colorings that they can use in their bars of soap. I even taught them that they need to use rubbing alcohol to spray the molds, just to make it easy to take the soap bars out when they're set, and to spray some on the melted soap base to avoid the air bubbles when stirring the soap, colorings, and flavorings together. I even told them that their own brick of soap base has to be chopped up into tiny squares and microwaved for 20 seconds so that the soap can melt.

It was quite a time-consuming, dirty, but yet fun activity for the kids. They never thought that soap bars can be made and used for an everyday hygiene routine. The kids really enjoyed coming up with different shapes, scents, and colors of soap that can be used. The hardest part that they ever had to face with the activity was to wait for almost an hour for the soap base to set. It was hard to wait for a very long time for one soap bar to set before doing the next step of their project. 

Baby Doll made hers with two flamingos, making a heart shape position, while standing on water that's on top of a white brick that says "Dance" Scout made hers on a giant heart-shape bar of soap with a blue soap volleyball that shows how much she loves volleyball. Curly wanted to make a scientific bar of soap like a geode, but he wasn't pleased with how it turned out, so Mom suggested that maybe it could be an oyster instead. He really liked that idea and after a few changes and another small molded pearl, it turned out great.

I'm so proud of you, Baby Doll, Curly, and Scout for trying out this activity. It sure was fun teaching you guys about this new technique. I hope the judges like your 3D Art projects.