The Honeymoon Souvies

Confession time: I am a huge sucker for souvenirs. I love those kitchy touristy shops that all cities seem to have, I love magnets and T-shirts and keychains that sport the name of the city I've visited, and I especially love knick-knacks that have a story behind them. I have a small basket woven by a local Native American tribe, a wooden pot made by the Amish in the local Amish community, and I have a small blown glass statue made by a local artist that I purchased from the art museum. Anything pretty that was handmade or came from a unique place, I'm all about.

So even though we ended up with ten T-shirts, three magnets, two Christmas ornaments, two keychains, and a million seashells from our Hilton Head Island honeymoon, we also managed to snag some cool, unique, and interesting items as well.

This photograph was taken by a well-known photographer on Hilton Head Island. This photo is of Harbour Town, which was one of my favorite honeymoon stops. I loved the lighthouse and exploring the boardwalk!

We only spent about a day in Savannah, but I absolutely fell in love with it. I purchased this photo collage because it showcases so much of the Savannah architecture that I couldn't get enough of!

Seashell windchime. Seriously. When we got to Harbour Town, we saw these displayed in all styles and sizes, and I wanted to look at them, assuming they would be extremely pricey. I was so happy to find that they were super affordable, and I snatched up this one for only $15. There's no way I'm going to hang it outside with Kansas winds reaching 40+ mph, so finding it an indoor home is high on my priority list once we move into our house!

This sweetgrass basket was hand-woven by a Gullah man. He was weaving them when we went to a farmer's market, but I didn't buy one because they are fairly expensive, being a handmade item. I kicked myself for the rest of the trip for not splurging on one, and we ran into the same guy on our very last day there, selling them at a museum we went to! I couldn't pass them up twice in a row, and I'm so glad I didn't. This little basket smells so good (think a smell similar to hay, but sweeter) and is a great conversation piece. The man who wove it is a seventh-generation basket weaver!

I had seen a cute project on Pinterest before we got married that I knew I wanted to try, and I love how it turned out! Basically, you print a picture of a beach and mount it in a shadowbox, then take sand from that beach and cover the sand in the photo with the real sand from the beach. Here's the original pin:

And here's how mine turned out:

I snapped this photo of Folly Field beach one evening - this beach was about 20 steps from our hotel room. We loved spending the day doing touristy activities and then heading back to the hotel to sit on the beach and play in the waves in the evening. It's the first time I've ever really seen the ocean and I was instantly hooked. Our hotel was in a gated community, so it was never super crowded, and the sand was so soft and clean! We found a couple of boogie boards in the closet in our room and took them out in the ocean - it was fun until the waves were almost over my head, and then I had had enough and was quite content to sit with just my feet in the surf :)

I know that vacations are about building memories, but I still love having photographs and tangible items to remind me of all the adventures we had. I'll do a full post (or multiple posts...?) about our honeymoon later on, but I wanted to share some of our neat finds!