Father’s Day - 2/2 - The Idea Room

DIY Hand Carved Monogrammed Soaps

Okay…I love giveaways, but it is going to be nice to get back to some regular posting. What about you? As you know, I have a love for all things MONOGRAMMED! I have been wanting to make some monogrammed soap for quite a while now, but have been unsure about how to go about it. So the other day, I just thought I would do a test run and see what happened.

Overall, I am happy with the turnout. I practiced on one bar of soap first to get my preferred carving technique down. I highly recommend a practice run before making an attempt if you would like to try to make some for yourself.

Then I let my 3 year old carve my practice soap while I worked on one of “the real things”. I actually really enjoyed working with the soap. Here is what I did:

Supplies:

Lever Soap 2000 (I liked how soft and easy this soap was to carve and work with)

glue dots

length of ribbon

scrapbook paper

vegetable peeler

standard screwdriver (smaller the better)

Q-tips

monogram pattern

non-permanent marker

straightened paper clip

First I started with the vegetable grater and gently shaved off the Lever 2000 logo that was imprinted in the soap. I did this by laying the vegetable peeler flat and gently curling the soap off layer by layer. This will take a little practice to get it smooth and flat. I made sure to catch all my soap shavings in a container and saved them to reuse.

As soon as the logo is almost completely gone you can finish and just smooth any uneven areas. You can do this on both sides of the soap if you would like.

Then I took my circled monogram and printed it out. The circle measured 1.5 inches square. The font I used was Times New Roman in bold and just stretched it in my photo program till I was happy with how it filled up the circle. Then I printed it out and cut out the circle.

Center your monogram in place and hold it with your finger while you take a pencil lead or straightened paper clip (which I used) to mark around the edge of the circle. Then I dug the circle out so that there was a nice deep groove.

Now cut out the letter of your monogram but be sure to leave all of the white area. Take a fine tip marker and trace the letter.

This will let you know where to stop when you begin to dig out the excess soap.

Now, take your screwdriver and gently and carefully scrap out the soap on the inside of the circle. You will want to keep the letter raised and untouched. You will need to be really careful around the edges of the letter and the circle so that you don’t accidently scrape into an area you don’t want touched.

When you scrape the bottom, be sure to pull the screwdriver so that is lays flat against the soap. This will give you a nice smooth layer. When you are happy with the monogram and have scraped out enough soap, you can take a Q-tip and smooth out areas that may be a bit rough. Simply dip the Q-tip into hot water and gently rub on the rough surface. The hot water will melt the soap and smooth any edges. Do this very carefully and be sure your Q-tip is not dripping wet. You can also gently remove the marker with the wet Q-tip.

And that is it! Done with the soap carving. You can see my practice soap in the picture below (before it was carved up). The practice soap is on the right hand side next to one of my better attempts. I learned how to be extra careful around the letter to make sure it held it’s shape nicely.

Now, you want to prettify your soap packaging. I simply cut off the ends of the soap box leaving just an open rectangle. Then I simply glued some cute scrapbook paper around the box.

Then taking a long strip of ribbon, I forgot to measure it…Just wrap it around and eyeball it. I fastened one end of the ribbon on the top of the box in the middle under the monogram (see top picture). Then using another glue dot, I attached the monogram to the other end of the ribbon. Then simply used a glue dot to place the two ends of the ribbon on top of one another.

Print out another monogrammed circle on white cardstock and use that as the decorative top. To open you will simply lift up the monogram and the soap will just slide out one end.

I thought these would be fun to have in your guest bathroom for special guests. Or they would be fun to give as a small little gift for a friend or a newlywed couple. Or…carve up your mom’s favorite soap with her initial. Monogrammed soaps are just a fun little gift idea that can help make someone feel a little extra special!

And just in case you LOVE monogrammed items as much as I do, I pulled together a list of some of my past monogram projects:

Monogrammed Hand Towels

Monogrammed Mugs

Monogrammed Hand Soap Bottles

Moss Covered Initials

Decorative Initials

Linking up here:

Tidy Mom

May 3, 2011 · Filed under: Christmas Gifts, Crafts, DIY Tutorials, Father's Day, Gifts, Moms, Mother's Day, Teacher Gifts, Tutorials Tagged with

Father’s Day Gift Ideas

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I have procratinated figuring out what to give my hubby for Father’s Day this year because things have been a bit crazy around here. We already picked out a new suit for his gift this year because he could no longer wear his other one due to a large hole he had worn on the seat of his pants.

But I wanted the kids to be able to give him a gift so he had something to open on his special day. I made him some homemade BBQ sauce using one of our favorite recipes and a homemade meat rub to go along with it. I put some of the sauce into an old store bought BBQ sauce bottle and packaged up the BBQ rub. I bought some meat and have all the ingredients for a delicious barbeque ready to go for our Sunday dinner. Here are the recipes if you are interested.

Homemade Pork Meat Rub:
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup paprika

Directions:
In a medium bowl, mix together white and brown sugars, salt, pepper, and paprika. Rub onto pork 10 minutes prior to grilling. Store any leftover rub in a sealed container.

The Homemade BBQ sauce recipe is from our neighbors who I grew up next to. It is so yummy. Or use your own homemade BBQ sauce or find one on the internet. There are a lot out there.

Homemade BBQ Sauce:
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup margarine
1 lb pkg. brown sugar
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. salt
32 oz bottle ketchup

Then I found this fun idea at kmckaydesigns.com. Since my hubby has a few favorite snacks, I decided the kids could help me make this cute snack case for him to take and keep at work.

It is made using a six pack of IBC Cream Soda and some scrap book paper. I found the directions and templates for everything you need to make them here.

I am really tempted to make these for my guy too. I seriously can not get over how talented Bakerella is. These look so yummy.

What fun things are you making for the Father’s in your life?

June 19, 2009 · Filed under: Father's Day, Gifts, Recipes Tagged with

"Things We Love About You" Scrapbooks

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Make your Mom, Grandmother, Spouse, Dad, or anyone a scrapbook containing any special number of things you love about them. This would be perfect for an anniversary, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, or a Birthday.

When my parents were celebrating their 61st and 67th birthdays (which was just yesterday right momma?) my sister, the amazing scrapbooker, had the great idea of making each of them a scrapbook that listed 61 and 67 things we (their children) loved and appreciated about each of them.

She was living far away at the time and had all of the siblings come up with a list of things we would like to include in the book. Then she rounded them up and together we came up with what would officially go in the books. We scoured our pictures and rounded up enough to also go into the books.

Then the rest of us sat back and twiddled our thumbs while she did all of the hard work. It was better that way, since she has the best scrapbooking skills amongst us.

My parents birthdays are within 10 days of one another and so when my scrapbooking sister was able to come for a visit, we gave them to my parents at a birthday party we threw for them.

She also included a page where we had all of the grandkids share what they loved aobut their Grandma and Papa.

We have since spent a lot of time looking through them, remembering and laughing about the good times and hilarious trips we had together growing up. Although they were quite time consuming and took up a lot of my sister’s free time and talent, they were one of the best presents my parents have enjoyed getting. This Mother’s Day may be a little to close to pull this one off, but someone is having a birthday or anniversary who would love to receive this. Heavens…I want one!