Fall Fun Series II: The End

So, Fall Fun Series year two final grade for one Miss Finger Candy?  C minus.  You know, if she could just buckle down and stop talking to everyone and everything she’s seated beside, she could really turn this year around (nothing my parents ever heard during parent-teacher conferences, nosiree!)

Okay, so I whiffed the Fall Fun Series.  With the exception of series MVP Michelle of Melting With Michelle (who continued posting even during the lead-up to her end-of-October wedding!) we all dropped the ball a little as work and family obligations and unfortunate, unexpected problems with both derailed some of our best blogging intentions.  And while I can’t speak for the other participants, I simply wasn’t feeling the autumn spirit this year (at least not until my spur-of-the-moment Halloween trip to Disney World; funny that it took leaving my cool weather, leaf-strewn home for Florida’s “faux” Fall for me to regain that spark.)

But I also have much to be thankful for as the autumn draws to a close.  Great friends, close family, neato husband, snuggly cat, a roof over my head, comfort and safety.  Also an arse that no longer requires its own postal stamp.  And without trying to sound too conceited (but probably failing) I like to think I have at least some of those good things in my life because I worked hard to achieve them.  Luck always plays a role, but so does effort and determination.

And so the second-to-last Fall Fun Series prompt was to thank yourself for something good you’ve done for you, yourself and I.  For me, that was taking a hard, critical look at my lifestyle choices and realizing that if I didn’t turn things around, I was going to wind up the very definition of a life unfinished.  My world had petrified, and I was in dire need of a swift kick in the pants.

So I kicked those pants, really kicked ’em into high gear, and many months later I’m feeling healthier, wealthier and more wise than I have in about a decade (well, maybe not wealthier; increased activity does not always come cheaply, particularly if your activity of choice is visiting Disney.)

And so today I’m thankful for having seen the diabetes forest for the trees, for having pulled back what was barreling towards irrevocable and for putting me first.  Sounds selfish, but by not taking care of myself, I was relegating absolutely everyone else in my life to the bottom of the list.  Actions speak louder than words and all that not-so trite stuff, and what my actions were saying was that nobody else mattered, because I hardly mattered.  I’m thankful for having rejoined the human race so I can share this weird, maddening world with you all. 🙂

Au revoir, Fall.

Fall Fun Series II: Thanksgiving

Happiest of Thanksgivings to my American friends, particularly the other participants in the Fall Fun Series.  I hope you all have the most wonderful of weekends!  Here in Ontario we’re supposedly due for a bit of very un-Fall-like wonder – a wonderland of snow, as the song goes.  Also freezing rain and probably hail.  Oh, it’s a bloody wonderland, alright!

But for those of you still enjoying autumn’s delights, here’s a delicious trio of scrumptious scents from my recent Sniff My Tarts order – I guarantee you they’ll keep everyone in the Fall spirit, long after the leftovers have been packed away.

Honey Gingerbread – Homey, sweetly spiced and bearing absolutely no trace of that unpleasant sulfuric note common to honey scents, this comforting fragrance would play equally well in the winter holiday months.

Apple Cider Latte – Holy crow, I LOVE this scent!  That fruit-and-coffee combo that I initially thought I hated strikes once again!  Coffee haters, fret not, the latte note in this blend is virtually undetectable, working its slightly astringent, slightly creamy magic behind the scenes to bolster the juicy sweetness of the tart apple cider.  Next time I place a custom order with Sniff My Tarts, I will absolutely get a decorated sheet cake in this stupendous scent (it actually smells pretty fantastic alongside Honey Gingerbread, and I think pairing it with Ice Cream Scoop Bread or Vanilla Waffle Cone would also do some pretty outstanding things for this juicy cider scent.)

Pumpkin Marshmallow Latte – A complaint that comes up over and over again regarding pumpkin (latte/pie/milkshake/muffin) scents is that they rarely smell like actual pumpkin.  Most of them invariably smell like the spices we use to dress up the humble orange gourd.  But this lovely fragrance smells just like sticking your face over a steaming Pumpkin Spice Latte – that fresh, almost vegetable-like note mingling with mounds of creamy, dreamy fluff, tied together with a ribbon of smooth-as-silk spiced coffee.  Another great latte scent; Sniff My Tarts does them very well.

Fall Fun Series II: Crazy for Cranberry

Yeah, sometimes the ol’ Alliteration Generator just completely goes on the fritz and starts spitting out the laziest, most common words it can find.  Cranberry Craze?  Sounds like a flavour of Mountain Dew.  Crazed for Cranberry?  Sounds a bit like a mental health concern.  So basically there’s no unique, alliterative way of expressing my love of cranberry except to say I’m – sigh – crazy for it.

Except…am I?  I mean, I like Bath & Body Works’ Frosted Cranberry scent as much as the next person during the holidays, but otherwise, it’s not really my jam.  For that, I actually prefer lingonberry sauce or my mom’s spiced red currant jelly – excellent on all manner of roast beast. 😉 But cranberry scents?  Eh, I guess, for the Fall and Winter months, if you insist.  It’s not a scent I ever gravitate towards outside of the festive season, and even then, not so much.

Which is, I suppose, why I still possess this nearly two-year-old old bag of Cranberry Marmalade-scented Mini Melters from Rosegirls.  Also because – hoo doggy!- she’s STRONG.  Deeply spiced and a whole lot astringent, this cranberry is here to party.  Spice-haters and those with sensitive sniffers need not apply (this includes me; this wax makes my nose itch and tickle quite fiercely.)

But I thought I could turn this scent into something a little more palatable through the judicious use of more Mini Melters, and so that’s precisely what I did, whipping up two yummy blends – one bakery, one fruity-sweet – that let this nice, but bit-too-much, seasonal scent really shine (also, why all the ice and snowflake imagery in this, the Fall Fun Series?  Because late Fall in Canada actually means early Winter; we’ve already had a couple of didn’t-stick snowfalls and many, many mornings of frost.)

The addition of Rosegirls’ Vanilla Bean Noel and Marshmallow Smoothie scents proved to be the perfect bakery foil for Cranberry Marmalade’s dark spice notes, combining to create a creamy-dreamy, caramel-topped treat studded with tart, lightly spiced dried cranberries.  I basically made a scone without the scone part!  And it’s scrumptious; Vanilla Bean Noel is fast becoming a blending favourite.

As seasonal ciders and punches are my favourite things to see on a holiday party table, I thought it would be nice to create a spiced punch sort of scent.  Except actual punch (or Koolaid) scents and I are no bueno; they provoke headaches and sneezing fits in both my husband and I.  And so I both tempered AND sweetened-up the Cranberry Marmalade scent with a tiny touch of Cotton Candy Frosting, before adding a rather inspired dash of Apple Clove Butter.  I feared the addition of the Apple Clove Butter might push this scent blend into total spice overload, but my worries turned out to be unfounded – Apple Clove Butter is subtly, subtly spiced, with none of the sharpness of Cranberry Marmalade and all of the smoothness of actual apple butter.  It’s a lovely, juicy scent, and paired beautifully with the other two fragrances, creating something that really did smell like a gently wafting crock pot of some festively fruity concoction.  Yum!

Fall Fun Series II: Can You Keep a Secret?

I hope you can, because I certainly can’t – I *had* thought about keeping this one totally to myself, but I’m too excited not to spill!  Also, I offer this up in explanation of where this week’s Halloween-centric Fall Fun Series is not.  As in I don’t have any cool Halloween plans to share with you this week, although I certainly will next week, because we’re goin’ to Disney!!!  To celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary, actually, which falls on the 31st itself.  We will mark that particular milestone by (hopefully!) riding the Haunted Mansion 13 times in a row – one of those lifetime bucket list items I can’t wait to cross off the list!  I’m really looking forward to sharing the fun with you next week. 🙂  Until then, happy Halloween from these two nerds.

Fall Fun Series II: Exsquashted

Perhaps it’s because every single pumpkin fragrance gives me wretched headaches (even those I previously had no problem with) but I am not feeling the pumpkin love this autumn.  Typically I’m drowning in all manner of pumpkin spice-scented candles and bath and beauty products, not to mention a boatload of pumpkin spice lattes, but this year?  Precious few pumpkins.

First, it seems that my body’s aversion to pumpkin scents (if not my sense of smell, because I really do like them) is not vendor-specific.  These pumpkin-based scents from Super Tarts give me just as bad a headache as any other wax I’ve encountered this year.  Unfortunate, as they’re pretty yummy fragrances, all (Elm Street, a maybe-too-bready blend of pumpkin creme brulee, toasted marshmallow and sweet cornbread, Psycho, a tart, slightly spicy blend of warm pumpkin bread, sweet raspberries and spiced sour cream cake, Addam’s Family, a rich blend of salted caramel, pie crust and pumpkin cupcakes and 28 Days Later, a sweet bakery blend featuring Blueberry Pumpkin Patch, cake batter, vanilla ice cream and cranberry preserves.)

Here’s my Yankee kitty, Sophie, holding a couple of cubes of Elm Street over her pumpkin cauldron.  I’ve never cared for the Elm Street movies (undead child molester – uh, neat?) but I always thought Freddy had style, and so does this slashed-up, two-toned tart (red and dark brown stripes, of course.)

Finally, here’s a beer my husband grabbed yesterday on a run out to the grocery store – local Ottawa brewery Big Rig‘s Tales From the Patch, a spiced pumpkin porter.  And what precisely is a spiced pumpkin porter, you may be asking?  Well, an alcoholic beverage I can’t quite wrap my head around, for one.  Spiced pumpkin beer soda.  Creamy pumpkin soda beer.  Carbonated pumpkin beer drink.  You know, I’m not really doing Big Rig or Tales From the Patch any favours here with my not-so-descriptive abilities, but I actually am underselling this one – it’s not that offensive, with the flavours all coming at you in separate, but equal, measures.  Also, the can glows in the dark!  Ooh, shiny! *runs away in distracted glee*

Fall Fun Series II: Movies, Manis and Melts

Spooky movies (or television shows, or books, or what-entertainment-have-you) are the name of this weekend’s FFS game (games, too, if there are any that are autumn appropriate.)  Supernaturally-tinged things have always been *my* thing, so I have quite a few schlocky favourites I like to pull out around this time of year.  Turns out I also have a number of matching manis (with a major emphasis on the Beetlejuice side of things) AND some complimentary wax melts as well.  This is far from an exhaustive list of favoured frightening films, and there are an absolute ton of one-off television shows I love that bring the delightful Halloween spooks (Roseanne’s Halloween episodes were brilliant, as were Buffy’s, AND Brooklyn 9-9.)  But these are clearly the ones that have captured my nostalgia-lovin’ heart.  Don’t know what to tell you, I likes what I likes. 🙂

I probably shouldn’t have included Beetlejuice on this list; that’s an all-the-time watch around these parts, no seasonal designations necessary.  Here I’ve paired five very striped manis with Super Tarts’ Beetlejuice, who apparently smells like apple butter, oatmeal cookies with icing and buttermilk pancakes.  I would have thought mold and moss, but I’ll take these fruity pancakes over that rank-sounding combo any day.

I have mentioned before that my favourite movie to watch at this time of year is Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows.  It is SO bad!  But Jeffrey Donovan. 🙂  Actually, I love this makes-no-sense-on-any-level sequel so much, I bought this hideous-sounding (and kind of hideous-smelling) Blair Witch wax tart, a blend of Leaves, lemon, marshmallow cream and “a hint of salted caramel.”  None of those scent notes are particularly compatible, but then again, nothing in the movie works in tandem either.  Except Jeffrey Donovan’s farm rat hotness – it’s clear, a focusing point for my attention.  And eyes.  Or would that be his foine naked arse there at the end of the movie? … (sorry, got a little carried away there…)

I keep thinking that one of these days I’ll simply will myself into liking The Walking Dead through pure osmosis, but that remains to be the case.  It’s just a terrible, terrible show.  And this is coming from the person who freely admits to loving Death Note.  So until that day arrives, I’ll just content myself with a number of walker-centric manis, as well as this Zombie Brains wax tart from Super Tarts.  I like the design of this clamshell; it looks like that snot green, TWD-inspired polish on the far right, Look at the Flowers, Lizzie.  Don’t love the smell, though – this key lime, pomegranate and cotton candy blend is hella powdery and provokes mini sneezing fits.  And that simply won’t do when you’re sprinting through the Atlanta woods with a pack of walkers hot on your heels (oh, who am I kidding, this is The Walking Dead; they can’t get above more than a leisurely stroll.  That’s why everyone keeps dying and why they haven’t made it beyond Virginia in seven seasons.)

The Addam’s Family is so cute.  I love how hot Gomez and Morticia are for each other, like they’re always just on the verge of throwing down right in front of Lurch and Cousin It.  I’m actually sort of surprised they only have three children – you know they’re boning down allllll over that creepy old house.  Here I’ve paired Addam’s Family, another Super Tart blend of salted caramel, pie crust and pumpkin cupcakes, with Glam Polish’s indigo-to-purple matte micro-glimmer, Wednesday.

Better than Beetlejuice.  Better than The Goonies.  Better than Death Note, ha!  The Lost Boys is legion and I won’t hear a single word against it.  I’ve also joked in the past that I think Super Tarts missed the mark on this scent blend.  As yummy as it is, no way in Santa Carla hell would David and his crew smell like pomegranate, apple cider and toasted marshmallows.  More like salty sea air, spilled bong water and general boy funk.

Speaking of the undead, here’s everybody’s favourite masked movie killer, Jason Voorhees.  Well, I suppose all those horny, machete-d camp counselors aren’t so fond of him.  I used to sit down every Fall and marathon all bajillion of the Friday the 13th movies until one day, I realized I didn’t actually like them very much.  The mid-to-late ’80s sequels in particular (V, Jason X, Jason Takes Manhattan) are atrocious.  But I will always have a soft spot in my heart for 1986’s Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, in which Jason is bested by an outboard motor.  It’s easily the worst of all of them!  This wax blend – another clamshell from Super Tarts – is quite nice, though, a pleasant, mild combination of apricot, buttercream, ice cream scoop bread and a slash of red berry currant.

And while I have no wax inspired by Gravity Falls, I’d be remiss – remiss, I tell you! – in leaving it off this list; the residents of Gravity Falls are so into Halloween, they create a mid-point holiday by the name of Summerween to satisfy their never-ending need for creeps.  They carve Jack-o-Melons, visit obnoxious Summerween Superstores and get haunted – or is that hunted? – by the Summerween Trickster, a malevolent meanie made entirely of discarded “loser candy.”  It’s kind of the cutest. 🙂

Fall Fun Series II: I Love You, I Hate You

Today’s Fall Fun Series prompt is one designed to expose our essential contrariness by sharing our autumn scent loves and hates.  I’ve already stated that I blew myself out on apple scents last year – too sweet, too cloying.  Then I went and bought about eight apple-based scents, and much to my surprise and delight, they’re all fantastic.  So there’s that contrary business again!  Or is it simply undecided?

Starting with the bad news, one thing I am quite decided on is that pumpkin scents, no matter the vendor or the blend, give me terrible headaches.  There’s just a sour kind of note there that prompts some nauseatingly fierce headaches.  And that’s a new thing this season – I suppose that makes pumpkin the new apple. 😉  Sorry, pumpkin, I’m sure I’ll be back on your tip next year.

But this year I’m back to Apple Acres, or at least *these* particular apples, Rosegirls’ Mini Melters in Apple Clove Butter, Lambeau Leap and Apple Strudel Rice Krispie Treats.  These showed up on my doorstep yesterday just as I was lamenting a lack of pleasing Fall scents; had actually kind of forgotten that I had purchased them?  But talk about great timing, and talk about great scents; I love them all.

Apple Clove Butter is probably my favourite.  I’m not sure if it’s close to Beezy’s popular Apple Butter scent, but Rosegirls’ is a keeper – crisp, juicy apples shot through with warm mulling spices.  I think it would be fairly spectacular blended with a rich, buttery bakery (such as Pie Crust or Nilla Wafers) although it’s great all on its own.

Lambeau Leap is, I believe, named after a football team.  Green Bay, maybe (almost said Green Day there, whoops.)  I really don’t know sports (GO SPORTS!!!)  This is an odd fave for me, as it contains Sweater Weather, a popular woods-and-juniper blend from Bath & Body Works.  It’s quite cologne-y, and I’ve never been much for woodsy, masculine scents.  But in Lambeau Leap, blended with crisp apple cider and creamy Vanilla Bean Noel, it’s really nice; reminds me quite a bit of another Rosegirls blend that subs out the juicy apple cider for astringent pine.  Very nice.

And finally, Apple Strudel Rice Krispie Treats, a not-too-sweet, not-too-bakery blend of flaky apple strudel and crispy Rice Krispies.  This is the most linear of all the apple scents, and it’s lovely all on its own – I wouldn’t blend its delicious simplicity with another thing.  Great choices, all.

Fall Fun Series II: Fashionably Whiffing It

There’s at least one posting prompt I whiff every year in whatever blogging challenge I’m participating in at the time, and it looks as though 2017’s will be today’s theme of fashion in the Fall Fun Series.  I’m just not a very fashionable person.  Oh, I can turn it on – and out – when the occasion arises, but I’m a real jeans and t-shirt kind of lady, and I’ve got zero problems if those jeans and t-shirts come from Target.  Or Torrid, because I apparently have the fashion sense of a 13-year-old girl.

More than that, though, this year in particular, as I continue down this path of increased exercise, weight loss and general health betterment, I’ve found that I can barely keep a handle on my sizing from week to week, let alone season to season.  On average, I’ve dropped about five sizes in seven months, but there are aggravating outfit outliers (among them the American-made swing dress I purchased for a special Halloween event, only to heartbreakingly discover that I could lose another 50 pounds and still not fit into the damn thing.)  Clothing sizes are a giant crap shoot under the very best of circumstances; when you factor in weight loss that drops your boobs two cup sizes in a month while your tummy resolutely remains the size and shape of the Pillsbury Doughboy’s, you question the utility of trying to maintain a nice wardrobe in the midst of such bodily chaos.

Well, okay, I may have something to show you, an ensemble I sport when I want to take awkward arabesque gym selfies – neon accessories (shoes, iPhone case blocking out my face) and my favourite black and white (and red, and grey, and blue) striped leggings.  I think they look like Tim Burton workout wear (hmm, interesting collaboration possibility there.)  I spend time down in my building’s gym every day, and I at least attempt to look cute while I’m there (admittedly difficult when you’re sweating like some sort of livestock.)

Anyhow, for those two reasons, I have no (real) Fall fashion to share with you today.  No fashion for me, so NO FASHION FOR YOU!  But my fellow blogger friends will undoubtedly have some fun looks to show you; please do check out their posts by clicking on the links below. 🙂

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Angela at Angela Kay

Jay at The Candle Enthusiast

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Michelle at Melting With Michelle

Sandra – me! – at Finger Candy (although I clearly have nothing to say on this subject!)

Fall Fun Series II: My Apple is By Far the Most Crumblest

This post will be a bit on the shorter side on account of the fact that during last year’s Fall Fun Series, I completely blew myself out on apple scents.  Caramel apple, toffee apple, green apple, crab apple – if it was flavoured or scented comme une pomme, I (over)enjoyed it.  As such, I have very few apple-scented products to share with you, even during this heady autumnal time.  More on them in a second.  But I DO have some very cute apple nail art to show you this morning, a simple, lightly sponged manicure inspired by an array of autumn’s awesome agriculture.

But as for bushels of bath and beauty and baskets brimming with wax?  Hmm, not so much.  That’s probably for the best – put a year or so between harvests. 🙂  But I still enjoy a lovely apple scent from time to time – one of my favourite candles, Bath & Body Works’ Pink Apple Punch, is very pomme-dominant.  But like everything, best enjoyed in moderation.  So, what crispy sweet goodies will be scenting my life this Fall?

Rosegirls’ Mini Melters in Macintosh Swizzle Sticks (these three remaining chunks are over two years old; it’s a testament to the strength of apple scents that this wax is still quite potent.  I like blending this scent with Mango Sorbet and Marshmallow Smoothie for a lively, sweet and creamy fragrance.)

Luscious handmade soaps in Fruit Fool (blue/green) and Poisoned Apple (green/red) from Dreaming Tree Soapworks.  Fruit Fool smells like a freshly baked apple-blueberry pie, and Poisoned Apple smells like sharp, caramel-coated crab apples.  I’ll have a bit more to say on the subject of these soaps a little later on (spoiler alert: they’re awesome!) but in short, like the ellipses said, they’re awesome.  That’s why I now own enough soap to take me and mine well into the year 2019.

The Lost Boys wax clamshell from Super Tarts.  It’s The Lost Boys, and we all know how I feel about The Lost Boys.  I actually talk about it so much, my friend Jaybird had NO choice but to call off my dogs (Nanook and Thorn, of course) with this sweet waxy gift.  Basically, this wax could be scented like cat poo and Victorian London sewer sludge and I’d still want it.  But thankfully it smells MUCH better – like sweet pomegranate, spiced apple cider and toasted marshmallow (on a tangential note, if I were making a Lost Boys-inspired wax, I’d blend salty sea air and spilled bong water notes.  Guaranteed that’s what David & Crew smell like.  Grandpa, too.)

Fragrance oil rollerball from Solstice Scents in Corvin’s Apple Fest.  Juicy sweet and lightly spiced, this fragrance will make a lovely bridging scent between the crisp and cozy days of autumn and the frosty holiday months.

The Bathing Garden’s wax bundt in Nights at the Circus.  A friend-approved favourite, Nights at the Circus is a sweet and spicy pumpkin-apple scent that reminds me of the smell of the craft barn at your local farmer’s market – it even has that slightly woody note to it, like barn planks still damp from the morning’s mist.

Glazed caramel apple wax tarts from The Bathing Garden in Vintage Circus (red) and Victorian Midway (purple.)  Both scents feature a base of Winter Candy Apple, a popular holiday scent from Bath & Body Works – I particularly like the cinnamon note of Vintage Circus.  It smells like Red Hots!

Fall Fun Series II: Pinspiration

Good morning, friends!  This Saturday’s prompt in the Fall Fun Series is to compose an inspiration board, a pictogram, a collage or even a simple list of the things that make our hearts sing every autumn.  For me, that means a heck of a lot of gazing at leaves, assembling my Halloween Town, wrestling my cat into goofy costumes and celebrating my wedding anniversary, among many other lovely autumnal things.  Let’s take a closer look at some of the Fall delights that always inspire my soul at this time of year.

Cats in costumes!  Here we have the Weeger as Eeyore, a bee, a centipede and a mylar shark, and our dear, late kitty Porky as Pooh Bear and a deadly little Mewback.  Porky was always deeply intolerant of the five to 10 minutes we would spend every year wrestling her into her costume and then chasing her around the apartment with a camera, but Weegie takes it with some degree of good measure (so long as we lavish her with soft food the second she’s wriggled out of whatever tummy-constricting costume we’ve managed to wrap around her pudge in the first place.)  We don’t have kids; please don’t judge!

Leaves!  Right outside my door, lining the Ottawa River, or out in the country, edging the highway, or up the Gatineau, where I go with my parents every year to tend my grandparents’ graves.  I’m so incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by such a bounty of leafy beauty every year, it almost makes up for the following six months of snow and ice.  Almost.

Stranger Things!  The second season starts on October 27th, and I shall be indisposed until such time as I have finished watching it.  I really don’t like binge-watching things – loved parsing out the first season episodes bit by wonderful bit, actually – but I don’t believe any of us will be afforded the luxury of remaining spoiler-free this time around. It’s the best show I’ve ever seen (sorry, Buff) and I am so. unbelievably. excited!  A very dope anniversary present from our Netflix overlords.

Yes, a fine anniversary present indeed for these two (young, so young!) goobers, who are celebrating their lucky 13th.  My gosh, we are just babies in this photo (but dang if my boobs don’t look SLAMMIN’; bless you, corset gods.)

My Halloween Town!  A rather large operation that sprawls across my moss-covered diningroom table every Fall.  I had briefly toyed with the idea of letting the town go fallow for the year – setting it up and lugging it out of storage is a major, major pain – but I know I’ll cave in the end.  Gotta let the residents of my spooky little town vent their haunts for the year, yes?

Scary movies and TV shows.  Although I must note that I haven’t possessed the stomach or temperament for major (or even minor) gore in a long, long time.  Nostalgic picks like the deeply silly Friday the 13th series or my favourite terrible horror movie, Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows, are about as wild as I get now, and I’m perfectly content with that. Bring on the G and PG-rated spooks!

Like The Nightmare Before Christmas, a charmingly creepy little stop motion movie that has a place in my heart and home year-round.  I spoke at some length last year about our snow globe, a wonderful wedding gift from friends.  This year we were fortunate enough to find another gorgeous collectible, an anniversary gift to ourselves that I will be positively gagging to share with you just as soon as it’s mounted to the wall!

And, of course, we can’t forget all the delicious smelly things that will be sweetly scenting my home this autumn.  This is a photo of last year’s bounty (with the exception of the scoopable, a pancakes-and-campfire scent, I melted through all of this and then some.) Looking forward to more cozy scents this year.  To the Fall!