felted soaps

One of the most enjoyable parts of being on vacation is having leisure time to relax and spend time doing some of the things I love most (ie. crafts or anything creative). When D's mom brought out the supplies to make felted soaps this morning we both jumped at the chance for a morning of crafting. She has some beautiful felted pieces around the house, so I knew the end product was worth whatever work was going to be involved. Seeing the soft wool as it starts out, I had a hard time imagining how on earth we were going to get it to stay wrapped around a bar of soap. We gently pulled apart the different colors of wool roving, blending together whatever colors we chose, and then laid it on top of the bar of soap, weaving one way and then the other. You flip the bar of soap over, wrapping the top pieces under and repeating the process. Once the bar is completely covered, you dunk the whole thing in soapy water! With gentle massaging and rubbing, the wool starts to shrink and form a tight casing around the soap. It took patience but in the end the wool roving has sort of shrunk and formed a casing around the bar of soap. The bars look so pretty and when you get them wet, the soap foams out with a soft scent. As you use the bar, the felt becomes a natural exfoliant - and even better, the bar is so beautiful it's like a little piece of art in the shower.   

Here's a YouTube instructional video on how to make felted soap - we didn't use panty hose, we just used our hands to manipulate the wool, but either method works!