My Favorites of 2016!

Art, Music and Books...throw in some top quality tea and I am a happy gal. :)

Here are some of my favorite things from 2016:

"Prince of Wales Tea" by Twinings

This is my all time favorite tea. It is slightly sweet and smells divine. All around great black tea.

"Tell Me I'm Pretty" by Cage the Elephant

This album got a LOT of play time on my Ipod this year. I got to see them in concert too and it was amazing. Check out the songs "Mess Around" and "Trouble".

"Bose Quiet Comfort Headphones"

I got these beauties for Christmas and wow! Wireless and comfortable. They block out all sound except for what is playing and the sound quality is excellent. 

"Act Like It" by Lucy Parker

I loved this book! So funny and sweet. Fairly clean too which I like in a romance book. It is only 99 cents right now on Amazon!

"Throne of Glass Series" by Sarah J. Maas

This series is so much fun. The 5th book "Empire of Storms" came out this year along with the second book in her "Court of Thorn and Roses" series. They are both awesome. Thorn and Roses series is more geared towards adults as it has some steamier love scenes.  Sarah's writing is so engaging and she has a way of making you escape reality with her. If you are a fan of fantasy books with some romance thrown in and bad-ass heroines, you will love these.

"A Moon Shaped Pool" by Radiohead

This band has everything that is good about music. Transports you and creates a whole world of sound to explore. I absolutely love their newest album. "True Love Waits" might be my one of my favorite love song ever. Achingly beautiful.

"It Ends With Us" by Colleen Hoover

Colleen is one of my favorite authors. Her sense of humor is off the charts funny and she uses lots of music references in her books too (which I love). Her books will make you laugh and cry and fall in love with the characters. She is amazing!

"Dopamine" by BORNS"

This is a new artist that I got to see play live this year. Don't let the album cover scare you...this music is downright beautiful (and clean). "Electric Love", "Past Lives" and "10,000 Emerald Pools" are my favorite songs but this whole album is stellar.

"Walls" by Kings of Leon

The title song to this album will make you cry. Another awesome album from one of my favorite bands. I am hoping to see them next year (for the second time) if they tour near me.

"The Lunar Chronicles" by Marissa Meyer

These were a really fun read. The final book in this YA series came out this year and wrapped up the stories really well. They are a spin off on classic fairy tales (Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Snow White) with a fantasy/futuristic cyber twist.

"Amazon Echo Dot"

My husband Mark installed WiFi enabled plug ins and switches to the whole house this year, including my studio which sports about 20 different light fixtures. So needless to say it is a total thrill to be able to say "Alexa Turn on All Art Lights" and have my studio come to life! It is such a time saver. Not to mention all the other fun features.

And lastly, I wanted to share this art course I will be following in 2017 by one of my favorite artists, Tamara Laporte of Willowing Arts. Lifebook 2017 has some amazing artists participating and I can't wait to see what they have in store!

Such Great Heights Lyrics...Lovely

Just playing with photoshop tonight and decided to create a little image with one of my favorite song lyrics.  It is from the Postal Service song "Such Great Heights".  Iron & Wine did a beautiful cover version of the song too.

Free Holiday Music!!! NICE!!!

Gotta love free music!  I am seriously addicted, and Amazon is my enabler!  Enjoy!!

Amazon Music Sale

Two of my favorite albums are on sale for $3.99 today.  Thought I'd pass along the links.  
I used the song "Heaven on Fire" from the Radio Dept. for one of my YouTube videos (below).  Their music is very unique, kinda dreamy retro.  Bon Iver's front man Justin Vernon has one of the most unusual voices I've heard.  It almost seems high and off key but in a good way. His melodys are gorgeous.  Take a listen....

New Fleet Foxes Album!

I just had to share the link to the new Fleet Foxes album.  It is on sale for $3.99 today only at Amazon.com.  Incredible!!

If you don't know their music think Simon & Garfunkel for the 21st century.  Beautiful harmonies & folk guitar. I LOVE their first album, it is one of my all time favorites, and I was so excited to see that they were coming out with another album after 3 years.  I was already planning on buying it today and then found that it was Amazon's album of the day! 














Here is the editorial review from Amazon:

Product Description

Fleet Foxes are from Seattle and the members of the band are Robin Pecknold, Skye Skjelset, Josh Tillman, Casey Wescott, Christian Wargo, and Morgan Henderson. The first Fleet Foxes album (Fleet Foxes) was released on Sub Pop in 2008, and though the band s intention was to record a new album in the 6-8 months following its release, the reception of the record was such that Fleet Foxes found themselves very busy, touring consistently through the end of 2009.

Engineered and mixed by Phil Ek and co-produced by Phil and the band, the new Fleet Foxes record is called Helplessness Blues. Recording for Helplessness Blues began in April 2010 at Dreamland Recording in Woodstock, NY and continued off and on through November of that same year back in Seattle at numerous studios, including Bear Creek, Reciprocal Recording and Avast. Like very nearly every worthwhile thing, making this album was not easy; it was a difficult second album to make. Drawing inspiration from folk/rock from about 1965 to 1973, and Van Morrison s Astral Weeks in particular, Helplessness Blues sees Fleet Foxes heighten and extend themselves, adding instrumentation (clarinet, the music box, pedal steel guitar, lap steel guitar, Tibetan singing bowls, vibraphone, etc., along with more traditional band instrumentation), with a focus on clear, direct lyrics, and an emphasis on group vocal harmonies. We have it on good authority that the album is called Helplessness Blues for at least a couple of reasons. One, it's kind of a funny title. Secondly, one of the prevailing themes of the album is the struggle between who you are and who you want to be or who you want to end up, and how sometimes you are the only thing getting in the way of that.

Having heard Helplessness Blues, we mean to get out of its way.