Good Clean Fun

Being a lover of homes and decor and texture and details, naturally I love the little things. I'm a believer that adding a wow factor to your space doesn't have to cost a lot of money or be the first thing people see when they walk in the door. Rather, a home's character is hidden in the details, the bits and pieces scattered about. So what's my point? I really love this monogrammed set of soap from Pottery Barn.

As in I really, really love it. I love how fancy it looks just sitting there in that bowl. I love that it's personalized with the owners' initials. I love how it seems so spa-like and pretty. I kept it on my list of things to buy sometime, you know, whenever I have an extra $49 sitting around for six bars of soap {on sale right now for $39!}. A few years ago, in an attempt to satiate my desire for the Pottery Barn soap, I bought bars of plain old Ivory soap and convinced my wonderful husband to help me shave them down so they were at least smooth and nice and looked a little better sitting in a bowl. I placed them in one of the bowls from a Goodwill Hunting trip, but they looked a little sad.

That soap needed help. I still loved the Pottery Barn soap, but I couldn't bring myself to hit "Submit." I wasn't about to carve our initials into the Ivory, either, so I had to come up with a different solution. Besides decorating and organizing, I also love to design cards and invitations. I decided to play around and make my own monogram to wrap around the soap.

Good enough for me! Watch out Pottery Barn; I was motivated now. I used my handy paper cutter to cut some strips from a paper bag I'd saved from the grocery store.

And taped the paper at the back of the soap.

Next I printed my monograms and cut them out.

After using my hot glue gun to center the monogram onto the front of the paper strip, my soap was set.

Back in the bowl it went, and I now had my own spa-inducing set of soap.

Love is in the details! How great would these soaps be for baby or wedding shower favors? For a few bucks, these soaps pack quite a punch. Take that Pottery Barn. {But thank you very much for the inspiration!!}