Location, Location, Location - Another Challenge

After taking a few months off from the actual making of soap (holidays, taking a month to go to Costa Rica and other life events getting in the way) I'm finally getting back into the swing of things.

Once again I'm getting caught up in the creative side of soap making, and decided to join the Great Cakes Soapworks soap making challenge.  This month's theme is Location, Location, Location, where you need to make something reminiscent of where you live or have once lived.  Since I am just outside of Boulder, Colorado, and one of my favorite places is Chautauqua Park, I decided on creating a Flatirons soap.  Although we originally moved to Ft. Collins back in the eighties, this is one of the first places we explored - being avid rock climbers back in the day :).  If you've never been there, you really should make the time to visit - the view of the flatirons just from the parking lot are awe inspiring AWESOME!  And the trails have a good range of difficulty levels.

Anyway, back to the soaping!

So, I ended up making three different batches to create the look that I wanted.  I started with this photograph I found on the web from Glenn Randall Writing and Photography.

I thought for a while of the techniques I had under my belt and how I could make it look like the picture.  This is what I came up with.

All of my soaps are made with only natural colorants, so the color palette is a bit limited.  First, I needed to make a small batch of brown (cocoa) and yellow (annatto seed infused oils) soaps.  The brown I will cut up for the flatiron embeds, and the yellow will be shredded to make the flowers for the meadow.  I also tried doing some pointillism for the meadow, but I liked the look of the confetti soap better.

Poured it into the mold and tipped it a bit to get an angle...

Then, I made a different shade of green for the next meadow, and finally a darker green for the tree line behind the Flatirons.  After these two layers were poured into the mold, I took cut up pieces of the brown soap and placed them into the dark green.  I left a little sticking up, as I wanted the sky to be highlighting the tips of the rock.

This was a very messy, but fun, process :)

 All that was left was pouring the purple (alkanet root infused oils) over the top.  This photo is after it sat for 24 hours.  Then it was the telling hour to cut it and see how it came out.  Here's a pic of taking it out of the lining.

Like I said, I did three batches.  I like all three, and all three depict Boulder, Colorado pretty well.  Some of my friends interpreted them with Boulder Creek included, which wasn't my intent, but it works!

Batch Number One

Batch Number Two

Batch Number Three

And, of course it's snowing outside today, so the colors are washed out in this photo.  I'm spoiled by being able to take outdoor photos most days.

I really love all of them, so it's hard to decide which one to enter into the challenge.  However, since the last batch is closer to the image I was going for, that is the one I submitted.  Maybe something in between would be perfect!