Summer Round Up (picture heavy!)

With Labor Day, summer is officially over, and it is back to the grind.
I wanted to recap the summer, looking at what all I accomplished with my time off from studying...

After some thought and consideration, I entered a few soaps in the local county fairs to be judged. I was so excited to place at both fairs this year!
At the Appalachian Fair, my Pomegranate Vanilla soap placed third in the Valentine's Day category, and my Jack-o-lantern soap placed third in the Halloween category! I was so excited and honored because they competition was fierce. Too bad they did not have a soap category, because...
At the Greene County Fair, my Green Grass soap placed first in the soap category! Wow! What a huge achievement!

I spent a lot of time this summer making new soaps and trying out different swirls... I'm pretty proud of the results, and they inspire me to try new color combinations and patterns. Here's some of my favorites:

My Applejack and Peel soap with the peacock swirl turned out amazing! 

Blackberry sage was my first try at the peacock swirl, and it turned out rather well!! 

(I also waited all summer for the blackberries to ripen so I could get these photos!!)

This is my chamomile soap with embedded loofahs! Love it!

New facial soap: tea tree and peppermint with activated charcoal and shea butter!

A lot of my time was also spent on editing a book that I am writing... It is a how-to book that I hope to share with you all very soon. I've also been researching crowdsourcing options as well, so keep a lookout for some big announcements coming from me after the Christmas season!

Both coffees were not mine... but I would have
drank them both if I could have!

And... of course... I spent most of my time with my sweet son, who turned three years old in July. We went on many adventures together, we played and learned together, we potty trained and weaned together, and now he is my big guy, heading off to his first year in Headstart! Of everything that I accomplished this summer, spending my days with him was the most fun and most rewarding.

So now, we head back to school and off to some new adventures!