Blog 27 I Accidentally Invented Soap Rice
When Recycling Easter Eggs Goes Wrong
Every so often I drag my daughter into a “let’s do this craft” fun thing to do. You know the ones. They’re cute. They’re simple. They’re on parents’ newsletters, blogs, emails, ads, and flyers everywhere you look.
I like to pick the easy ones. That way, we have a 50/50 chance of replicating the art picture.
I chose a craft from one of the 23 Ways to Upcycle Your Leftover Plastic Easter Eggs (redtri.com) from the Red Tricycle website. They’re always packed with great ideas. We would make Jelly Soap.
Prepare the Egg
The first step, other than making sure you have all the supplies, is to prepare the egg. Simple. I whipped out my handy little Dremel, drilled a hole in the end of one egg, and showed my daughter how to repeat on the second egg. This went well, as evidenced by the lack of blood. So far, so good.
Prepare the Mold
I hauled out the 20-pound bag of Jasmine Rice that my family is not fond of (they prefer sushi rice). We poured the rice into a measuring cup. This went well, as evidenced by the lack of rice all over the counter and floor. Yea for us!
We stood the eggs in the rice with new holes facing up. Easy peasy.
Prepare the Soap
This step was so easy, it’s laughable. Pour liquid hand soap into the container. We used pre-scented and pre-colored; Winter Forest pine scented and light blue. It doesn’t get easier than that. I added the gelatin and poured boiling water into the mix. This went well, as evidenced by the lack of burns.
My daughter stirred the mixture into perfection. The next part calls for you to spray rubbing alcohol onto the mixture to get rid of the bubbles. I only had Wintergreen Rubbing Alcohol, so I used that. I didn’t have a spray bottle, so I improvised. I stuck my fingers into a bowl of Wintergreen Rubbing Alcohol and then flicked it onto the bubbles.
I almost lost my daughter to other distractions during this phase, because with one look she judged this improvisation as either stupid, ridiculous, undignified, or reckless. I pi-shawed her because it worked. The bubbles disappeared. Eventually.
But then so did the soap!
Pour Soap into the Mold
This is where things started getting tricky. We didn’t have a funnel with a small enough hole to fit the hole we drilled, so I improvised. First, I tried using a sandwich bag with a cut off corner, cake piping style. It did not work, as evidenced by the soap spilling over the outside of the egg and into the rice.
Not to worry. This was a solvable problem. We have skills and this did not defeat us. The next 10-ish minutes ensued with various funnels, test pours, and cut straws. Not being airtight, the rice received another bath, but no problem. We didn’t plan on eating the rice.
Now here’s where I took it a step farther and went overboard. I grabbed a tiny teddy bear with nothing to do and put it inside the egg before adding the soap mixture. I knew it would add an extra cute factor to the soap.
We poured and poured and reshuffled the funnel + straw setup until I saw the liquid near the top. I yelled, “Stop” and we looked at our eggs ready for the next phase.
We didn’t get that far because the liquid disappeared during a blink of our eyes. “Where’d it go?” I looked at my daughter wide eyed. “Oops.” I lifted an egg and beheld a blue soap rice swamp below. “I think we missed a step.”
This is where I lost my daughter to other distractions. Not amused, she walked away from the scene. Did I mention she’s a teen? Enough said.
I looked at the instructions that I skimmed before starting and spied it. I tend to skim, bypass, or not read instructions depending on environment, emotions, mouth feel, wind speed, and time-oriented pressures. Reference short blog Is Reading Directions Really That Important? | by Wendy Snyder | Medium
We needed to seal the Easter eggs with duct tape! Of course. I grabbed my bright rainbow duct tape and went to town. Duct tape and wintergreen rubbing alcohol soap covered eggs do not mix well and they sure as heck don’t want to be friends. Let’s just say it was messy, and I wasted precious duct tape. Side note: spent unused duct tape is an unconscionable sin that horrifies me.
Nevertheless, we persevered. And when I say we, I mean me. Dear daughter sat at the table pretending to read while not so secretly laughing at the show. (That would be me-the show.)
The winning combination, a.k.a. the Hinky Contraption was a large Boba straw cut, folded, and jammed into the medium funnel.
Eventually, the eggs were ready for the next phase.
Put it in the fridge
The rest I’ll tell in a photo story.
Wait 4 Hours, then take it out of the fridge and decant
We made Soap Rice and Rice Soap
