Soapbox House
Little Yuzu is Reading
Austenland
Shannon Hale
I adore cute packaging. Sometimes I buy things just because the packaging is cute...even if I don't like the actual product itself. Such is the case with the sweet little box below by Punch Studio. It 'housed' a very strong-smelling bar of verbena-scented soap. I saw it on display at a discount store. When I picked up the box and opened it, the pungent smell of verbena overwhelmed me (and not in a good way).
I bought the thing anyway because it was cheap and I wanted the box. I threw the bar of soap in the trash can right outside the store. Then I aired the box out over the course of several weeks until it smelled no more. Now I have a cute little keepsake box! I recently saw boxes in more shapes with the same design and was tempted to buy all of them so I could have a little village of house boxes, but I can only take so much of highly perfumed soap.
Last week I started reading Shannon Hale's Austenland, which is about a thirty-something American woman who can't seem to find her own Mr. Darcy (but, really, who can?), so her great aunt sends her on a vacation to a place in England where you live like it's the Regency era...in an effort to shake the Colin-Firth-in-a-wet-shirt syndrome out of her. It's okay, but not as good as I'd hoped. I'm anxious to finish this book so I can start on something else.