Spring Wreath with a Butterfly Flambe

Yes, I know it's not spring yet. In fact it won't be spring until March 20, which is months away. But that didn't stop me from making a new wreath for my front door -- in shades of pink and purple -- to put up when we took down all our holiday decorations yesterday.

Here's what part of it looks like up close:

I made a palette from some of the colors:

And generated this image from the palette:

This inspired me for the next soap challenge, the Butterfly Swirl. The wet, glittery soap looked and smelled fabulous (the scent, which slows trace, is Light Blue by Rustic Escentuals). For Janelle, here are the colors:

• Background pink: Cosmic Caroline + titanium dioxide + a pinch of Soapberry purple
• Purple: Soapberry purple + a pinch of Cosmic Caroline
• Green: Soapberry green + a pinch of hydrated chromium oxide + a bigger pinch of True Yellow
• Dark purple: Soapberry purple + Blackstar Blue
• Cream: titanium dioxide
• Glitter: Fine Iridescent Glitter from Brambleberry (my fave, as it doesn't look like soda ash and it seems to go with everything)

BTW, my husband asked how I took this shot to make the little round highlights. They're actually called "bokeh circles", and they're from the glitter and the angle of the light hitting the top. You need a macro lens to make only the center of the shot be in focus, and to move around until the light hits just right:

I followed Amy's tutorial very closely, but couldn't get a butterfly with it. Twice. So frustrating! Here are some pictures of it anyway:

(BTW, my new favorite gadget is a travel steamer to get rid of the ash on the tops. It's super easy, and makes a satisfying sound as it steams them. :)

I still love this palette, and will return to it, but I didn't think it would photograph very well, so I decided to try something completely different...

This next inspiration was Maddy's new t-shirt. She loves wolves. And flames -- I don't know why. Secretly, I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it, but the colors turned out softer than I had hoped. I didn't quite capture them in my photos (grrr!); they aren't quite so dull in person.

I didn't take any pictures of the wet soap or the process, but here's my butterfly!

The fragrance oil (Strawberry Rhubarb from Nature's Garden) also slowed trace, but not as much as the Light Blue. It discolored the batter to a light tan, so I had to up the TD to whiten it back out.

The burgundy is the merlot mica from Brambleberry, the red is TKB Trading's Red #30 -- a true red -- and the orange and yellow are TKB Trading's Soapberry colors.

Both of these used my favorite non-vegan recipe of 32% coconut, 32% lard, 32% canola/olive oil blend (from Costco) and 4% castor. I swap out the lard for palm whenever I need to make it vegan.

As always, I added 5% sodium lactate for hardness and 5% simple sugar syrup for bubbles, and used a water discount of 1.5:1 (water:lye) to minimize crackling.