Helping Hands Soap Bottle Instructions August 22, 2008

     Over the summer, one of my most popular blog posts was the one where we made soap bottles for Mother’s Day at our ward’s Enrichment meeting.  One reader asked me where she could get a copy of the instructions, and I thought it might be easiest for me to post them on my site.

 

     I had no instructions, so I created my own.  There may be better ways to accomplish the finished product, but after making 75+ bottles, we figured out pretty quickly what works and what doesn’t.  (For example:  funnels?  Not so helpful.)  If you have further questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section below.  Also, I have a template for the sayings in Microsoft Word, so if you’d like that, I’d be happy to e-mail it to you. 

 

 

Helping Hands Soap Bottles

 

    I bought the bottles from Industrial Container Supply.

 

     Here are the codes to ask for:

 

 B32221 (bottle)

 

 DP111E  (pump)

 

    When I bought them in May, the bottles were 43 cents and the pumps were 36 cents, so when you figure in the cost of soap and transparencies and ribbon, the total cost was about $1.75, and that was an over-estimation.  Very cheap, very easy.

 

    I don’t know where you’re from, but if you’re in the Salt Lake City area, you can drive to ICS.  They are located at 1845 S. 5200 W, in West Valley.  If you’re not in the area, you can order from their website or over the phone, and they’ll ship it to you.  http://www.industrialcontainer.com/

 

    I didn’t have instructions;  I just “winged” it.  You want clear soap (tinted is okay), but I would stay away from hand sanitizer.  The alcohol in it eats off the lettering. 

 

    The ladies in my ward made this project really hard (a lot harder than it needed to be), so let me give you the easiest way to do this:

 

 

1.  Trim your pump.  (They are too long to fit in the bottle, so you’ll need to cut it in half.)  ICS has already notched one end for you, so pull the straw off from the pump and cut it from the top, leaving the decorative notch at the bottom.  Reattach. 

 

If it’s still a little too long, don’t worry– if you use gentle force, it will curve itself at the bottom of your bottle.

 

2.  Cut your transparency.  You’ll want to cut it just inside the lines, so none of the black shows. 

 

You’ll want to use standard, copier-friendly overhead transparencies which should be available at an office-supply store.  (I had oodles leftover from when I was teaching, so I just used those.  Maybe you have a teacher in your ward who would share some with you?)  They need to be copied, though.  The image needs to be burned into the acetate.  If it’s just printed on, like with a computer printer, the soap breaks down the ink and it starts to come off. 

 

3.  Roll your transparency from side to side (right-side-up) and push it into the empty bottle.  It will unroll itself.

 

4.  Tip your bottle so the transparency is at the front of the bottle.  (If it falls to the back, the pump will cover up the words when it’s inserted.) 

 

OVER A SINK, gently pour the soap into the bottle, using its weight to hold the transparency in place.  If you need to adjust your transparency, use the pump straw to guide it into place.  DON’T OVERFILL!

 

5.  Insert the pump into the bottle and twist on.

 

6.  Rinse any soap drips from your bottle, then dry.

 

7.  Add decorative ribbon and accents.  Glue them into place, if you desire.

 

    

  

    This project is so versatile!  My parents are giving them as neighbor gifts this Christmas, and we tried it with a color copy on a transparency.  It turned out really well.