my sister left for Africa – and other fun weekend stuff

I apologize for the lack of blogging – it was a fun-filled, emotional weekend. My sister is majoring in Environmental Science at GMU and signed up for a study abroad in Senegal. Long story short, she was the only one that applied so they ended up creating an internship just for her! She left Saturday afternoon so my mom came up and we spent a couple of days together.

It’s just the two of us and we are really close to our mom – look how sad she looks!

But I think she’s settling in well… she’s posted tons of cool pictures:

After we dropped her off, we couldn’t let a day in Fairfax County go to waste, so we went shopping around Reston (where I used to work and live – I miss it soooo much!!). I could spend hours in Anthropologie – but when I look at the prices, then I realize why there are so many Pinterest DIY’s floating around on how to make everything in there for cheaper.

Their displays are amazing…

Wrap burlap/linen over canvas? Genius idea…

If I were rich, I’d buy all of these knobs and find something to do with them… and I’d have three ceramic strawberry baskets on my kitchen counter.

I’m going to use this as inspiration to make these flowers myself. 

In other news, here is my attempt to create a cream-tinted mason jar, I failed miserably. But once I lit it – I actually kind of liked it. I’m going to try a different method this weekend.

And last, but certainly not least, I had a successful Marshalls trip. I saw this shower curtain a few months back and REALLY regret not buying it so I always look in hopes that they might have another one. Unfortunately, they didn’t but I did find these little gems. I’ve been searching for small, shallow ceramic bowls (like the kind you put soy sauce in for sushi) at a decent price to put in the little drawers of my new dresser for earrings, rings, etc. These are perfect – I got 3 for my dresser and 2 more for my desk!

Was that a long enough of a post for you? Phew. This weekend should be good – it’s wide open so I’ll be working on painting my bookcases and adding crown molding along the tops as well as trying out a few of Emily’s fabric flower tutorials. Happy Tuesday!