I recently did some soap molding for gifts for Mother's Day and some swaps. It is a really easy and nice looking craft and Beverly and I thought you might be interested in a small post about how you can do this for Christmas gifts. Of course, there are a number of tutorials given on how to do this, and you can get as fancy or stay as simple as you want. I get my soap at Joann's with a 40% coupon. You could also do this at Michaels or Hobby Lobby, they give 40% coupons, too. I have used the plain glycerin and one that had shea butter in it. I used the 2lb brick and got this much soap plus 5 bars I had to pitch(more about that later).
You can put alot of different things in the soap: color, fragrance, and stuff like sea salt and lavender. You can buy little bottles of color for the soap--I used red and yellow to get the color in the top left corner. The greenish soap has little shavings of soap that I added into the soap after it was melted (I bought the shavings in a bag at Joann's). You can buy fragrance at the craft stores, too. I have found that you really have to use alot (I put in 1/4 to a 1/2 of the smaller sized bottles) to get a strong enough smell. I haven't put any additives other than some sea kelp I picked up at Joann's, and I don't recommend that--it was awful and smelled like dead fish rotting on a hot beach. Those are the 5 bars that were pitched!
The crafts stores also have a variety of molds or if you don't want to buy them, you can use a cleaned, tall cream carton. Just pour the melted soap into it and let it harden, then rip away the carton and slice.
The soap is fairly difficult to get out of the plastic molds. I broke one last time and had very sore fingers.
The basic technique is to cut the block of soap into smaller pieces and put them into a glass container. After zapping the soap in the microwave until it is melted, add your color and fragrance and any other things you want. You can also use a double boiler to melt the soap. Pour the soap into the mold and place into the freezer until hard. Pop out of the mold (easier said than done) and let dry. One of the things that is cute to do is to put small, one piece, plastic toys (like little plastic bugs or dinosaurs) in clear glycerin soap for children. These will have to be placed in the mold first and then pour the soap over them.
I used scrapbook paper and left over ribbons to wrap some and tissue
paper and stickers for the others. If you are going to wrap your soap
in paper you need to let it set out and dry. Mine set out for 2 weeks
and it wasnt long enough. If you are in a hurry you can wrap the soap
in waxed paper and then decorate it with other papers. Here are some links for
ideas and supplies. Fuller Soap for molding directions. E-soap supplies for soap, additives and molds. Enjoy!!! Sherry 
