Austin’s Sienna String Quartet has burgeoned from a group of girlfriends enjoying jam sessions and hanging out to a 25-member strong, award-winning business that has experience in everything from providing background music for recording artists and performing at SXSW to playing for wedding proposals and weddings, funerals, corporate events, fundraisers, and everything in between. Five years into their business, the group is expanding into San Antonio and in talks to do the same in Houston.

Every day of the week, Collings produces acoustic guitars, electric guitars, mandolins, and ukuleles that rival instrument builders from all over the world.

Austin’s iconic and historic hotel, The Driskill, recently unveiled its most recent renovation spearheaded by Texas architecture firm, Clayton Korte: the redesign of fourteen guest suites in the historic wing of the hotel.

Low calorie, but not low flavor! These five Texas brands are crafting quality hard seltzers that are easy on the stomach, highly sessionable, and perfectly refreshing. In essence, they were made for Texas summers.

From the brilliant minds behind the bar at Group Therapy, the sultry lounge at Hotel ZaZa Austin, comes – The Winter Spritz. The bright cocktail is a same but different riff on the beloved cocktail, adding cinnamon and spiced orange ginger ale to the mix to create the new “cocktail of winter” to get us through the holidays and the looming winter months ahead.

Across the state, independent bookstores stand out as cultural hubs and community fixtures. Owners of several bookstores featured in the December 2020 issue of Texasliving offered glimpses into their favorite reads, or their favorite recommendations for all who ask!

Lights dazzle from a three-story high scaffolding. The deck is packed with families, couples, and individuals, heads tilted and eyes glossy with wonder. And as the music plays in time with the flickering lights, visitors pause sipping their hot chocolate to take in all the magic of the holidays. This is the Mozart’s Coffee Roasters annual holiday light […]

This home is filled with smart design choices that make each space both chic and family-friendly. As the homeowners were relocating from out of state, they relied upon Etch Design Group principal designers Stephanie Lindsey and Jessica Nelson to put finishing touches into the newly built Texas Hill Country residence. While the home was already built, it fell to the design […]

Reading for leisure is a lifetime hobby. For many readers, books can provide an escape from reality, regardless of genre, and the novelty of a new book is exciting with every turning page. But book clubs bring readers back down to Earth. Convening and conversing about a recent read provides the essential human element of […]

Since 2002, the symbol of a yellow, interlocking fleur has taken Texas and the world by storm, becoming synonymous with one woman and one brand: Kendra Scott. A woman who wears many hats, or rather, pieces of jewelry, Scott is a chief executive officer, founder, lead designer, philanthropist, wife, and mother. Her geometric designs framing natural gemstones embody the […]

“Let’s get it done . . . so we can have some fun!” This is a key mantra of Erin Condren, founder, and chief creative officer of Erin Condren Design. Erin Condren is a lifestyle brand that fuses function with fun. They produce colorful, high-quality paper planners, notebooks, stationery, and more. Condren built her brand from […]

It all started with a fire. It was the Bastrop, Texas fires to be exact when the most destructive wildfire in the state’s history left a swath of devastation in the fall of 2011. Like many other businesses and organizations, a new restaurant in Austin stepped up to help with relief efforts in the neighboring town. From its location […]

Texas certainly knows how to do it large. When the team at Southern Living started scoping out properties to take on a remodel of epic proportions, they looked no further than the Lone Star State. Austin, specifically, was chosen as the 2018 Idea House location for Southern Living magazine. The dream team selected to tackle the project consisted of […]

On March 31, 1995, the news of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez’s tragic death spread throughout the Lone Star State and world. The Corpus Christi singer rose to stardom after winning the 1987 Tejano Music Award for Female Entertainer of the Year while singing in the Quintanilla family band, Selena y los Dinos. The young artist, famously known […]

From fry cook of a fast-food chicken joint to king of a Texas taco empire, Michael Rypka may have moved up the ranks quickly, but it was not always an easy climb. Rypka started Torchy’s Tacos with little more than a dream and a used trailer, back before food trucks were cool. Even when his […]