Happy September!

This year, with Labour Day taking place on the first Tuesday of the month, it means that school is delayed until the second week of September. Great news for a lot of kids, but I'm sure there are some parents who will be happy to see their kidlets back in school so the parents can have more of a routine in their lives again.

To celebrate this happy occasion for some, I bought some adorable erasers to be used as embeds. I think I finally learned to do it right.

Must work on lighting.

This came in a package of 36 erasers, so I'm going to have some fun with these.

Are you ready for school to start, or is it too early to start talking about fall?

Fairy Autumn

I'm still not willing to admit we're heading into the tail end of summer. Nope, not me, I don't care if the fair is on and that signals that September is around the corner. I'm sticking my head in the sand until I can't deny it any further.

I will however, admit that somewhere, in another universe, the leaves are changing colours and falling, and they fall into a gently flowing river that gathers them up into a bouquet to be used to brighten up a dark day.

Scented with black raspberry vanilla

Title:  Leaves in Flower

Back side. Maybe it should be the front.

Oatmeal infused bottom

Anyone else have momentary lapses of sanity where they write sentences straight out of bad romance novels? (Not that I'd know anything about those).

I'm Grateful

Well it's Thanksgiving on Monday here in Canada, and normally I'd be rejoicing at an extra day off, this year it's just another day since I'm not working a regular 9 to 5 job.

That doesn't mean however, I'm not thankful for many things, so let me list them off in as them come to mind:

1. all of you for reading my blog and laughing at my corny jokes
2. the soaping community in general, for great advice and wonderful support 
3. friends and family who support my endeavours to make this soaping hobby into a business
4. still being able to keep those voices in my head from talking out loud, too often

And because it's fall, I had to make some fall type soaps right? Remember last week when I had made the moon from leftover soap? Well I had actually started by making leaves with that leftover soap. I thought I'd be clever and try and layer the leaves to create a more 3-D effect and rather than putting the leaves in neatly, I'd just kinda scatter them to the wind, so to speak, and then cut along the marked edges of where the soaps are supposed to be cut. These are some of the results.

These are scented with a chai tea FO, which is quite warm and pretty scent.

So to my Canadian friends, how are you celebrating Thanksgiving? And to my American friends, is the thought of Thanksgiving making you panic yet? ;)

Baking Season

Fall is that time of year when I want to bake. Okay, I want to bake quite often, but in the fall and winter is when I especially want a warm, nice smelling kitchen. Bon Appetit tweeted the other day an apple galette based on the one by Chez Panisse. It looked so good, I just had to try it.

I had a couple of nectarines left over that were as hard as a baseball, so I figured they would make a good substitute for the apples. Other modifications included using the jam I had in my fridge rather than using the apricot preserves as suggested, and adding a dose of apricot brandy along with brown sugar to sweeten up the tasteless nectarines.

For some reason I couldn't roll the dough into a circle. And no, I hadn't been imbibing prior.

 

Folded in the ends. Guess I should've paid more attention to the picture they had to see how it's done.

Fresh out of the oven

 I think if I had made it to their specifications, it would've been great. As it was, I didn't fold up the dough well enough and ended up with a bit of a mess in the oven. Good thing there's no smoke alarm in the kitchen,