Musician of the Month | Shannon Saunders

Hello and welcome to this month's edition of musician of the month! As the title tells you, this month it's going to be on the wonderful and gorgeous Shannon Saunders! Now, I know that many of you might not know who she is, as she doesn't belong to some big record label and get played on the radio, but in my opinion, she's much better than half of the people that are played on the radio.

 

Shannon Saunders is unique in many many different ways. She's not afraid to be different, and she even set up her own record label "Lovejoy Records" because she wanted to have more control over what she released and when. Some of you may be thinking that Lovejoy is just a nice little name she thought up because it sounds pretty, but one other thing about Shannon Saunders is the amount she shares about her personal life on various social medias. I know it sounds weird, but I think I probably know more about her than the people who live down my road. ( ~ would just like to say I don't stalk her. to be fair to me my neighbours are REALLY unsociable ~ ) She tells us all about what's going on in her life, shares her holiday snaps with us, and posts videos of her gorgeous and incredibly adorable little nephew, Pierson. (I literally want to keep him, in a non-abductive-and-completely-legal way. yeah.) So anyway, back to the main point about Lovejoy records. Shannon also has a blog on her official website (which of course she designed and runs all by herself), and she posted this about why she chose "Lovejoy Records":

"Basically, My nan's mum was a very popular character in our family as she was always singing, joking around, telling hilarious stories and just being a bloody brilliant woman. My nan's mum's surname was Lovejoy so we all decided in the family it would only be right, now my nan's passed away, to call the label "Lovejoy Records" in honour of her."

N'awww, that's nice isn't it? And do you know what else is nice? HER BLOODY FANTASTIC VOICE. Honestly, if you don't fall in love, I recommend that you go get your hearing tested. Seriously. I'm not joking. Miss Saunders currently has 4 songs you can buy on iTunes, two of which she recorded for the Disney film "Tangled", and those are called "The Glow" and "I see the light". Shannon has posted covers on her YouTube for a good few years now, and they are all incredible. She's actually introduced me to other artists through her covers, for example Christina Perri and Jessie Ware. Personally, my favourite covers she's done are a cover of Kodaline's "All I Want" and "I Can't Make You Love Me", amongst many more (of course). Even though these are all amazing, where Shannon really shines is in her ridiculously good songwriting skills! I mean, this girl is incredible. Her tunes are always mega-catchy, and her lyrics are insane. Two of Shannon's originals are on iTunes that you can buy, her first ever single "Heart of Blue", and her more recent one, "Scars". As I've mentioned before, Shannon shares a lot of her life with her followers, and she also recommends a lot of other singers on her Twitter pages, such as Hobbie Stuart (who I am now addicted to - and he's rather easy on the eye as well ;) ) In fact, I'm so obsessed with Mr Stuart at the moment, I may have to do a blog post about him soon. (This gives me an excuse to say that I am being "productive" whilst looking at videos of him and pictures of him. Sounds good to me.)

Another lovely thing about the wonderful Miss Saunders is how much you feel you can relate to her as a teenage girl. She's honestly a normal human being, who's just been gifted with the voice of a goddess (and the looks to be honest). Her lyrics are so easy to relate to, and she has normal problems that she talks about, for example, her heartbreaks, her friends, and not knowing what outfit to wear for the day (even though she looks gorgeous in practically everything...*sigh*). She also doesn't use huge famous people in her advertising and to do things such as making her music videos. She recorded both of her music videos to go with the singles on iTunes with the wonderful Damian Weilers, and amazingly, her video "Heart of Blue" video only cost £9 to make (for the tube and bus fare), compared to the hundreds, or maybe even thousands (I'm not clued up on these things) that other pop "stars" cost to make a music video.

If I haven't convinced you yet that she is one of the most perfect human beings on the universe, here are 3 more reasons you should love her/want to be her/her best friend.

1. She is literally the only girl who can wear double denim and STILL look fabulous
2. She is like me and without releasing calls everyone and everything "lovely". Seriously, just check out anything she posts
3. She posts hilarious and relatable tweets on the good ol' twitter. My two favourites currently:
1. "The ;) face always seems a bit sexual doesn't it? If you saw my ;) face in real life you'd think differently."
2. "Some people are like flies. The buzzy annoying ones that smack into the windows and never seem to leave"

Yup, this girl is actually the definition of perfect.

Soooo....I think I have well and truly emptied my brain of all things that are currently residing there. I'm sure I'll think of more reasons as to why I love Shannon Saunders but maybe in the mean time you should check out her own music, videos, and make your own reasons up!

Possibly my favourite ever cover in the whole wide world by a YouTuber:

Shannon's newest single, which you can buy on iTunes (link on her social networks and in video description).

My favourite original by Shannon, which is unfortunately not on iTunes :(

lemmie hear ya say chuuunne!

How to stalk Shannon (in a friendly and completely legal way):
Twitter
Official Website
Facebook
Youtube
Instagram

~ Sorry if this post is rambly. I've got mountains of school work and had to work unexpectedly today, so I think I've made up a few words here and there ~

Thank you!

❤

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caught up in the quest for perfection

Today is another one of those "random" postings where I just feel like I need to write my feelings down. Apologies. 

Something I found on tumblr which seemed appropriate.

I started sixth form last week, and I've already noticed how people are all trying to fit in with the people they deem to be "popular" or "pretty". I'm seeing people that I've spent the last five years with changing their interests and pretending to be something they're not so that they can change their friendship groups and make new friends. Making new friends is great, but not if you're pretending to be someone else whenever you're around them.

I go to an all girls school, so appearance is also something that I'm noticing a lot. The day before we started sixth form, I saw a huge long twitter feed about what everybody is wearing so that they weren't wearing something different to other people. The result: five or six girls wearing the EXACT same outfit from Primark: pepsi-cola baseball style tops, black leggings and white converse. Of course there were slight variants from this, some people wearing coca-cola T-Shirts and red converses. I'm not saying that every single person was copying everyone else, but I'm just saying you don't have to be the same as someone else to look nice. I complimented different people on their different outfits, and in return got some compliments about the dress I had chosen to wear.

The second day was just the same, and the third day after that. Everybody was wearing similar clothes, and it looked like everybody had had the same shopping spree in Primark/New Look (and a few of the rich kids in Abercrombie, Jack Wills and Hollister). I have nothing against any of these shops, or shopping for new clothes, I just feel like everybody has lost their originality and wants to be a carbon copy of everybody else. There are of course some people who have a beautiful and unique dress sense. There's a girl who embraces vintage in a way that only she can do (not the high-street fashion way, HER way), and I'm sort of jealous of how amazing/gorgeous/lovely/unique she looks every single darn day. She also has a blog but I don't think she knows I exist so that's why I'm not linking the blog/saying her name. She is far too cool for me and if I have any lessons with her, who knows? We may become great blogging friends :) But if not, it's not to be.

Everybody seems caught up in the quest for perfection. They don't understand that perfection doesn't just have the one definition, and nobody is perfect anyway. Is barbie perfect? No. I recently found this online and thought you should read it. It does actually make you feel slightly better about yourself.

If Barbie was an actual woman, she would be 5ft9 tall, have a 39" bust, an 18" waist, 33" hips, and a size 3 shoe. Her head would be the same circumference as her waist, meaning that she'd only have room for half a liver and a few inches of intestines. The result? Chronic diarrhoea and death. Also she would not be able to menstruate, meaning she would be infertile and unable to produce children. If Barbie was real, she would have to crawl on all fours due to her proportions. Her feet are so small, her chest would pull her forward onto her toes. Barbie calls this a 'full figure' and likes her weight at 110lbs. At 5ft9 and weighing 110lbs, Barbie would have a BMI of 16.24, and would fit the criteria for anorexia. Because Barbie's neck is twice as long as an average human's, it would be impossible for her to hold up her head; and yet this is the 'person' a lot of girls aspire to be.

Is she so perfect to you now?

I hope not.

Something else I found on tumblr:

Society is wrong. Dead wrong. We're taught that fake is beautiful. We're taught to believe that miniature waists and perfect tans are beautiful tans are beautiful. We're convinced that the blonde girls with the gorgeous smiles will win ever time. But, the truth is? Originality is beautiful. Big brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes. Curves. Your natural skin tone is beautiful. Your hair colour, your smile. Your voice, your laugh, your personality. Every inch of you is beautiful, every single part of you shines with your essence. You my dear? You're beautiful.

Of course we've all got little things we want to change about ourselves. I've got a roman nose and would love to lose that little bit of weight in certain places, but you've got to accept you for YOU. I'm green-eyed, freckled and spectacled. Does that matter? Sometimes it bothers me of course. Some days I would love to have "perfect" smooth skin. Sometimes I would love to have perfect eyesight and glasses annoy me. On these occasions I sometimes wear contact lenses. You don't need to be a carbon copy of a supermodel to be considered beautiful. There are certain things you can't change about yourself. 

Don't get caught up in the quest for perfection, because the only way you can be anywhere near perfect is by being you. The true you.

~ rant over ~

P.S. I apologise for the lack of photography in my posts at the moment. My camera has a problem with it and is being fixed, so I've only got my phone. That's why quite a lot of my photo's are internet photo's. It should be fixed by next week though...hoorah!

❤

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One Month of Blogging!

So it's been one whole month since I've entered the blogosphere, and stamped my name across this little piece of the internet, so I thought I should write something about it :)

(I also felt it necessary to have a picture of a cake. I mean, who doesn't like cake?)

I know my blog posts have been random and haven't really got any structure to them, but I absolutely love having a little space to jot my thoughts down when my head isn't big enough to hold them all! I have 4 lovely followers, and just for clicking that little button I am so grateful, thank you so much :)

Although I think I've taught you a little bit about myself through my random ramblings, I also feel like I've learnt a lot in my month of blogging, so I also decided to share these with you! (sorry)

1) There are so many interesting blogs out there that I've never heard of, yet now I spend hours everyday reading them with a mug of hot chocolate - believe me, it's quite time consuming!

2) I REALLY LOVE writing down my thoughts! No matter how random or screwed up my problems sound in my head, it always makes me feel better when I let them all out in the form of a blog post (for example, my post on Ronan) - even though these are completely random and reading them back they make absolutely no sense at all, at the time it was almost my form of therapy, so it really helped me :)

3) I'm addicted to designing things and am a bit of a perfectionist, even though my blog still seems to look a little pooey.

4) Checking your stats too often is NOT productive, and actually wastes a lot of time

5) Google is your friend - trust me, it's helped me so much starting this blog up :)

(I could honestly go on and on with these but I feel I've got to stop sometime, and I've got an essay to write for tomorrow - whoopsies!)

So yeah, this is me one month blogiversary post, and I hope you enjoyed reading another rambling of mine! Again, thank you so so so so very much for clicking that follow button, I love every one of you!

Rebecca-Ella
x

❤

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It's That Time of the Year Again...

Well my lovelies, it's that time of the year again when we all have to say goodbye to the summer and go back to normality & school (cue sad face). Unfortunately this means I'm going back and as I'm starting my AS levels, I won't have as much spare time that I can spend on blogging and photography. I'm going to try to continue blogging, but I'm not sure how often I'm going to be able to do posts. I'm sorry :( . Whenever I have free time I'm going to write a blog post, and if I end up writing about 3 in a night, I may just schedule them for different days so that they're spread out. But hey, you never know, I may get less work than I'm expecting and I might be able to continue blogging as much as I do at the moment! (Which isn't exactly that much, so I don't know why I'm writing this post...) Anyways, I wish you all the best of luck in your new school year, and I'll speak to you soon.

N'night my lovelies

x

❤

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Festival Fun

I live in the south coast of England, and I am very lucky with where I live, due to the fact that I live really close to the New Forest, and if I ever wanted to go to the beach, it's just a 20 minute drive away.

A little heart for all you lovely readers ❤ 

Last weekend was the annual Bournemouth Air Festival, which is a lovely weekend of planes, entertainment, attempting to get a tan and getting a lovely sunburn! I feel like I should give you a little warning here: this post is very picture heavy. 

Here are a few of the best pictures I took during the day time I thought I should share with you lovely readers. I've sorted them in an order which isn't chronological, but it sort of makes sense (I've basically grouped the planes together, you'll get the idea). I did this because over the four days, quite a lot of the planes flew more than once with different weather and lighting conditions etc, so I basically put all the pictures of the Eurofighter together, all the Red Arrow pictures together etc...

So, without further ado, here are some pictures I took of the aircraft at the air festival!

If any of you are wondering, from the top to the bottom, the planes are: the battle of britain memorial flight (including the lancaster and spitfires), then the sea vixen, then the eurofighter (which is incredibly loud!), and then the colourful one is Miss Demeanour. After that, of course, is my personal favourite, the red arrows! I've mainly used the pictures of the red arrows from their performance on the Saturday, due to the lovely clear blue sky (and so the pictures were better!), but they flew on the Thursday, Friday and the Saturday. The final picture is of a plane during the Night Air segment of the festival, and the night before (when my camera battery unfortunately died :( ), it actually had fireworks on it! I think that this plane is from O Brien's Flying Circus, but I'm not 100% sure).

Unfortunately, on the last day the Vulcan had a fuel leak so it couldn't fly, which I was super sad about because I'm a bit of a plane geek, and it's probably the last year it'll be flying due to funding issues :( But on the bright side, I also took some random pictures of the picturesque South Coast and random objects/animals for you!

 

I named the seagull on the right Marcel...because he got all the birds :')
If you don't understand don't worry, my jokes are never any good.

We spotted where Kodaline was staying before their concert so I quickly snapped these pictures whilst they were watching the planes, Vinny's (the drummer) face makes me smile every time I see it in the second picture, he was so excited when the planes came!

Last year, a local radio station decided to hold two concerts in the evening,with tickets priced at only £3.50 - a bloody bargain if you ask me! We didn't find out about it until the week before, and we managed to grab ourselves some tickets for the second concert, which was amazing! I saw Ben Montague, Ryan O'Shaughnessy, Matt Cardle, The Loveable Rogues, Lawson and Scouting For Girls! But the night before (which we couldn't grab any tickets for), we went down to the pub and because of how close it was to the open stage area, we could just about see the artists (nice one dad!), we also saw Amelia Lily, Honey Ryder, Newton Faulkner and Rizzle Kicks!

Although this year they doubled the ticket price (still good though!), the line up was just as super duper. On the Friday there was Diana Vickers, Stooshe, Lucy Spraggan, Shane Filan, The Feeling and Blue! On the Saturday night, I was really REALLY lucky because there were quite a few of my favourite singers/bands of ALL TIME! The line-up was Neon Jungle, Newton Faulkner, The Loveable Rogues, Lisa Stansfield, and Kodaline. Here are a few pictures of each of the acts. Unfortunately on the Friday night my camera battery died halfway through the concert and I had no spare, so I had to switch to my phone camera, so that's why there is a sudden decrease in quality. Sorry. Because of this, I put all the Friday night photos on one collage so that the quality doesn't appear as bad :) Enjoy!

Top Row L-R: Diana Vickers, Stooshe, Lucy Spraggan, Shane Filan
Middle Row: The Feeling
Bottom Row: Blue

Neon Jungle

Newton Faulkner

The Loveable Rogues

Lisa Stansfield

Kodaline

 I loved every minute of the Bournemouth Air Festival this year, and will definitely be going again next year (26th-31st August 2014!), you can find all the information about this here. The only advice I would give you that isn't given on this website is that it would be a better idea to go to a beach other than the stretch between Bournemouth and Boscombe pier, as this is absolutely PACKED. We went to a beach near a place called Southbourne, mainly because it's where my friend has a beach hut, but also because it was only a 30 minute walk from Boscombe pier, but also because the beach was nearly empty but you could still see all the planes!

Thank you for reading - apologies for how long it was, I didn't mean for it to be!

P.S. I'm feeling super snazzy & sophisticated blogging from the beach ;)

P.P.S. Happy September!

❤

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