Vacation!

Mr. Hunt and I are headed to PUERTO RICO bright and early tomorrow morning and won't be back until late Sunday night. Mr. Hunt met his goal of selling that was given to him at the beginning of last year and this is how he is rewarded, along with all the others that met their goals too. This trip couldn't have come at a better time. Not to sound greedy or anything, but Mr. Hunt and I NEED this vacation. Of course, I can think of a MILLION other people who NEED this vacation more than us (like my parents), but we need it too. With the stress from moving all the way here and him starting at a new office in a major new role, and me putting the ENTIRE house together on my own, we need small break, and this will be perfect for that.
Anyway, we are staying at the El Conquistador in a room that looks over the marina and onto the ocean.

There is a TON of things to do at the resort including all the water sports you can think of, a water park, a bunch of pools, the beach of course, a spa, and much more. There are a million and one restaurants to choose from too. With all this, I'm not sure how much we are really going to be able to explore because we have a pretty busy schedule.

Busy enough, with time to relax of course, but most of our meals are already planned out whether with a excursion or something that Mr. Hunt's work is providing. I don't want to tell you everything and then just have a re-share when I get back with the details, so Ill just say, we are doing a few GREAT excursions, and going to a few functions, then relaxation will be the next in line.

We will be bringing the laptop with us, but I'm not promising that I will be here to talk to y'all, but I will share tons of stuff on Monday.

PS. I'm having technical problems with my house tour video again. This time something totally different. Mr. Hunt is going to help me tonight, so I may have it up tonight. If not tonight, then when we get back....hopefully. Keep your fingers crossed.


Love,
Vacationing Lady

Obsessions

As everyone should already know, River has an unhealthy obsession of every type of ball imaginable. His favorite of course being the tennis ball. Especially when its more than one.

But, we have learned lately that he really is obsessed with any type of ball.

When Davis was in town and we went to Dave and Busters, he won a mini football and immediately River was in love. We played with him for a little bit and then we had to put it on the kitchen counter, out of reach, because he would have torn it apart. He tried many of times to jump up on the counter to get it, and he was successful. I decided on Easter Sunday that I would finally let him play with it as much as possible, and to my surprise, Hannah joined in as much as she could.

I really do love when they play together.

The ball went in-between the ottoman and the couch and they were both trying to fit in there to get the football.

These next few pictures, still crack me up every time I look at them. First, I couldn't get Hannah's attention.

Then I finally got her attention, and I was telling them to "STAY"

I finally said "OK" and for once, River didn't lunge right away, but Hannah did. This is her launch off!

And then her mid lunge! haha

Finally River got in too.

This is the moment I was so proud. They were sharing it! And right after the camera clicked, the football popped really loud and scared Hannah.

But they still tried to play with it.

Then a few minutes later, we had this.

You can see why we don't have a bunch of dog toys laying around. Its because they never last around here and its a waste of money. See the Frisbee? Yeah, that lasted two minutes, I kid you not.

All that matters, is the fun they had when the football was still "alive" right? Maybe they learned a lesson? I don't think so.

Then Hannah moved on to other things like one of her four favorite bones ever that her daddy bought her.

And River moved on to other things too. The exercise ball. He really does try to play with this, but sadly we had to teach him this wasn't a ball to play with. If he bites it or pounces on it once, it will pop. Luckily River is a good listener and Hannah isn't interested in this ball.

Happy Ball Days!

Love,
Jen

Collage wall #2

Now that Ive shared some of the collage, I'm here to share the rest!

Here it is! This is the hallway to the bedrooms.

I wasn't sure going into it if it would look way to cluttered or too chaotic, but I'm really liking it right now. Its different, but still looks cohesive.

OK lets look at each individual piece of art shall we? I didn't share the two pieces of "free" art that I shared yesterday.

Above are a few personal pictures as you can probably already tell. The first one on the top left is a picture of me giving Mr. Hunt and kiss on the cheek. This picture means a lot to us. It was all the way back in 2006 the same night that we shared our first kiss. Awwwwwwww. I spray painted the wooden cross white to fill the spot, and I think its perfect. Then there are two very cute pictures of our fur babies mugs. And lastly, a cool picture of Mr. Hunt and I that my cousin Melissa drew. I'm not really sure how she did it, but we love it since its in our favorite color green.

Then above those is a great picture of Mr. Hunt and I and our bridal party on our wedding day being silly. Sadly, this picture might have to change soon because its very grainy and didn't turn out very well. Also, Haydn is chopped off, even though you can't see his face anyway since he is showin' his bum instead.

Next to that is another picture from my grandfather and his folk art store. I really like this one because it looks like an old farm cottage. If I had a choice, I would live in an old farm cottage house, so in the meantime, I can just look at his picture and pretend.

Above that is another "free" piece of art that I made. Remember this picture of the glue and the gray circles in the last post?

I made a fish scale picture with them. Its very hard to see in the pictures above (you can tell more in person) so I took an up close one too. I just glued them in a pattern that looks like fish scales. I may take out the glass part of the frame soon to allow the scales to poke out a little more, but I still like it.

Then to the left of that is the inspiration picture that I made. This is what I finished with after I failed at the first attempt.

I didn't paint enough white and you couldn't see the letters.

Instead, I just scribbled a bunch of colors and put the stickers with a new verse on top of that and liked it, so I kept it. This is one of my favorite verses of all time. 

Below that and right above the picture of me giving Mr. Hunt and smooch on the cheek, is just a simple saying that we like to live by around here and it certainly holds true for the both of us. I just took regular old computer paper and wrote it in cursive with colored pencils. Very simple.

Then right smack dab in the middle of it all is the map of Hilton Head and Beaufort which are both very special places to Mr. Hunt and I. After I couldn't get it to fit in the first collage wall, I knew immediately I could get it to go here on a much BIGGER wall.

On the other side of the map is one of my favorite pictures of Mr. Hunt and I on our wedding day. Above that is a wooden 3 that I also spray painted white. 3 is the date we were married so it means a lot to us, and may be a slight reminder to Mr. Hunt when our anniversary is. haha. Just kidding! Hopefully he remembers it on its own, he said he will just remember that its always around the weekend of college football opening day....and that's not a joke. Whatever reminds him is what I say.

Next to those is a sunburst mirror that Ive had for a very long time and I just love it.

Above that is another piece of "free" art. I drew a picture of Mr. Hunt and I's first home that we owned together. Even though we still own that house, its very unlikely we will ever live there again, so I wanted to have something to remember it by. We do have tons of pictures, but this seemed a little better to me.

Next to that is just a simple picture of watermelon. I love watermelon. Its yummy and is fat burning. Did you know that?

Below all that is another picture of Mr. Hunt and I on our wedding day. There is also a black and white picture of a flower up close with a teal mat that I made myself. I didn't realize that the one above this was cut off, but you can get the point. Its just some colored paper that I made into a design in a navy blue frame. Not sure how long that will last there.

Above that is a picture that Mr. Hunt and I got drawn in one of the booths that you pay for your picture to be taken. As you can see, this was all the way back in 2006 the day before Mr. Hunt and Haydn left for Korea. This picture brings back a lot of memories.

Lastly is another picture that I got from my grandfather. Its another one that you can interpret how you want. I think its another door, but I like it. That's all that matters. 

And that's it! Do you like it? Does it look to cluttered to you?

Love,

Jen Hunt

Free Art

Well, almost free....don't get too excited!

After completing the collage of frames on the entry wall

I had a ton of frames left over and one HUGE wall that was calling to me for another collage wall. So I did exactly what I did for the first wall and hung everything up on the huge wall. This time it didn't look as good. Some of the frames were empty and some were filled with pictures I didn't like anymore and the whole thing just wasn't "meshing" like the first collage did, so I had to change some things up.
The only problem is that I didn't have any paintings just lying around to switch out and I'm not an artist whatsoever so this was going to be a little harder than I thought. I had to come up with some cheap options.  First, I printed out some new pictures from the wedding that I liked and filled some empty frames. But I didn't want the whole collage to be personal pictures, so I had to think of some other options too, so off to Pinterest I went and found some good options.
Look what I made!

I made these out of paint chips from Home Depot (they were free duh!) and from the side you can see that they are popping off the paper a little bit, not just glued on. I love it!

I was so excited to make the first one that I didn't take any pictures, but don't worry, I was going to make two of them. So here we go. First, go to Home Depot or Lowes or wherever you get your paint chips and collect a bunch in the color you want. For this second one, I waned nice blue colors. You don't have to do all different colors, you can do all one if you want too.

Then I got a punch out thing (not sure the correct term for this thing) in the shape I wanted. So obviously I had to get a heart one for the first one and for this one, I wanted stars. I just don't trust myself to cut those shapes exactly the same each time, but if you feel like you can do that (or want a less uniform look), go right ahead.

Then punch as many shapes as you can, or need, or whatever and start to arrange them on your paper. You can do this on any surface too. I did it on paper because I wanted to put it in a frame when I was done , but the person on Pinterest did it on a plain canvas. This time I used gray paper. The heart one was easy because I just punched out the hearts in the order of the paint chips and laid them on the paper in that exact order so the picture is light red (or pink) to dark red from left to right. This time I wanted to do light to dark in a diagonal way so it was a little harder.
This one wasn't looking right....

So I moved some around....still not right.....

Finally I got it somewhat right. To be honest, I was frustrated by this time and I just kept it this way.

Once I had them the way I liked, it was time to adhere them to the paper. For the hearts I used these form dots to raise them off the paper a little, and I wanted to do them for the stars too.

But, the dots were a little bigger than the star! Ugh! So, I had to glue them down this time. No big deal. It will just be different than the heart one which is fine. I didn't want them to look like the were supposed to be the same anyway hence the different color paper, shapes, and design. So the Elmer's Xtreme glue came out. Please excuse the gray dots in the background, that's another project coming to you soon. I just couldn't get enough of the free paint chips....sorry Home Depot.

After gluing them all down and putting it in a frame, I had the final product.

I'm loving it. 

Next I will share the whole collage wall now that it is finally finished, along with the remaining "free" art that I put together. 

Love,

Artsy Gal