Cheap but Effective (for now)

One of our biggest problems so far has been making evenly sized bars from  our batches of soap.  At this point we would rather spend our money on ingredients than tools, so we have been making the best of what we have on hand in our kitchens.  

After some trial and error,  K found a prototype soap cutter that looked simple and like it could be duplicated. So, with a rough sketch in hand and a quick trip to Lowe's, K's husband created our first soap cutter.  

He only had to purchase 5 things, because we had the other elements on hand.  I sacrificed a "Yard Sale" sign to make a smooth surface for the soap to slide across.

I gave the soap cutter a test drive on Tuesday when I cut my grapefruit-Jasmine soap. I'm happy to report  it worked like a charm.

The idea is you place the soap on the yellow center strips using either side as a flat guide, gently push the soap loaf against the stop in the center, take your long knife, or soap cutting blade (on the list) and place it between the two pieces of wood.  Draw the knife right through the soap, no muss, no fuss and equal pieces of soap (finally!!!)

It's hard to tell from looking, but this is going to save us so much time, and make very uniform bars of soap.  Ahh!  One more thing to help us move toward a smoother operation!  In six months we may look back on this and laugh at such a crude tool, but right now we are proud of it and excited to have it.