Soap Dish Making - oddball era

It’s been tiring for me to think about blogging lately. And it’s been a no go for me to even find energy to think about doing any kind of crafting. I’ve fallen somewhat out of the zone. But I’m fighting the urge to be lazy (it’s been a tough battle!).

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately – goal making and apartment hunting are the big ones currently. I’ve been trying to work on improving some furniture and finishing up some projects for a future apartment I may move into hopefully soon. A lot of those workings were minor and I didn’t think they were blogging worthy.

One thing on my mind, which I know is a little dumb to be focusing on for as long as I did, was a soap dish. Recently, I found I’ve been battling between which I prefer – liquid soap or bar of soap. Ugh, I know, how does one decide, right? 💁 I’ve been all about liquid for the longest time, but lately I’ve grown appreciative of handmade soap bars. I’ve become obsessed with the scents, colors, and the handmade nature of them. I’ve even favorited so much on Etsy for future soap shopping reference.

With this weird new soap obsession, I was into the idea of controlling the mess that soap bars leave behind, and I’ve wanted to buy a fun soap dish. I had my eye on a certain vintage pink swan soap dish on Etsy, but it ended up being sold. I remembered I had quite a bit of Sculpey left to make my own. I considered making my own swan version, but instead kept it simple and geometric. Really though, I wasn’t into the idea of making some extravagant sculpture.

I made a half circle. Added a small ridge onto the flat side and baked it for about 20 minutes.

After letting it cool for a bit, I sanded it down as I really did want it to look smooth and clean.
I was super anxious to get to the painting bit so I didn’t focus too much on sanding. I did a couple of layers of gesso, which I used that as my base color. It basically is white acrylic, so I didn’t want to waste time painting it more white.

I gathered a few colors, painted some squiggles and geometric shapes on both sides of the dish, and painted the edges. I let it dry and then mixed some mod Podge and iridescent powder to give it an iridescent shine.

Let me just share right now how much more I appreciate matte Mad Podge over glossy. I don’t know why it took me so long to experiment with matte, but I decided it’s officially my go to when it comes to Mod Podge.

Let me also share how obsessed I am with this iridescent powder. Months ago, I was roaming through my local Blick and came across this powder. I didn’t know if I’d ever use it and I was afraid to mix it into paints. I just didn’t know what to expect – if it’d work, if it’d ruin what I was painting, etc. You never know until you try, so I bought three different colors. I used the violet for one project and was mesmerized. I used the green for this soap dish and ugh it’s just so perfect. 😍 Really has a nice glow to it that reminds me of sea life and mermaids. It’s perfect, and unfortunate you can’t really see its greatness in the photo.

Anyway … I didn’t want the matte Mod Podge to be the only finishing because I don’t think it would last long in water. So I sprayed a coat of my favorite Krylon clear glaze.
I took it for a test spin and it seems to be holding up in the shower super well!