My Journey - Let's Get It!

Announcing My New Partnership!

Hello there Ladies and Gents! Well the day is here that I announce an exciting new venture: a partnership with SchlickArt Photography using my styling services!! This is a big deal for me and I’m lucky to have SchlickArt Photography as a partner. I wanted to give you all a bit of background on this awesome husband and wife duo, because I don’t do partnerships with just anyone; these two are seriously wonderful people but also insanely smart and I’m really proud to be a part of their awesome idea.

As you now know, today I’m doing a photoshoot with SchlickArt (because I’d never refer you to anyone or anything I haven’t tried for myself). Lindsey and I first connected on the notion that celebrities are just regular people; they have teams of people to make them look hot and if every woman had that chace and get in front of a camera, we could all look like we deserve to be on the cover of a magazine. And so here we are…I’m giving it a go to show that women of all sizes and shapes ARE beautiful, it just sometimes takes a bit of makeup to show you your true potential. And because this type of experience is a big deal for any woman, having a stylist is like having a close girlfriend – shopping together, her telling you what looks sexy on, having a glass of vino together, laughing, and trying on different outfits that make you feel your best. Well, that’s what I’m here to do. I’m going to make each client of SchlickArt feel her absolute best by showing her with a few tricks of the trade, what will enhance the parts of herself that she loves the most, and therefore bring out that sexy, confident woman that’s in all of us!

Check out an interview I recently did with them:

1. Tell us a bit about yourselves?

Well Brian and I have been married for 6 years now, we met when we were both 

working as photographer and videographer onboard the cruise ships for Princess 

Cruises. I am originally from England and Brian is from San Francisco, but we are 

happily settled in Santa Clarita now. After leaving ships, I started working as a 

glamour and fashion photographer in Los Angeles, I worked in this industry for 4 

years until I got laid off in 2011. Not a lot of people can say this, but it was a real 

blessing for me to be laid off, as it gave Brian and I the opportunity to build a dream 

together. Working in the glamour and fashion industry was amazing but the greatest 

asset I take away from it is the knowledge and ability the offer these genre’s to real 

women who deserve to be photographed in the most beautiful and fashionable way. 

On top of being complete photography and video geeks (we love geeking out on 

what we do!) Brian and I are really into travel, fitness, food and movies.

2. Tell us a bit about your business?

Our business is SchlickArt.com and we create pampering fashion and beauty photo/

video sessions just for women! Our photo/video sessions consist of a fabulous day 

with champagne, chocolates, a gift box, a full hair and makeover; and a chance for 

every woman to enjoy feeling like her best and most beautiful self, inside and out!

It is your day, a day just for you to celebrate who you are, away from life’s 

distractions. A day for us to show you just how beautiful and amazing your truly are 

and document it for you through fashion, glamour, beauty and/or boudoir. You then 

have these breathtaking and meaningful photos and video to keep with you for the 

rest of your life, reminding you of your power and beauty as a women. It is a very 

empowering day all round! To learn more about us please visit: http://schlickart.com/

home/About_Us.html 

3. How did you decide you wanted to do what you do, how did you get into it?

As I mention earlier in the interview, a while back I was laid off from my Glamour and 

Fashion job in LA. I loved what I did and the beautiful women I photographed but 

there was something missing. 

All of the women I photographed were professional models; and when I 

photographed them, they never saw the true value in the images, they just saw it as 

another job they had to go to, to get paid. The pictures were no longer special to 

them, or me! These models were also a specific look, age and size. You know, that 

‘look, age and size’ that apparently represents the women of the world but in reality 

absolutely none of us have that particular ‘look, age and size!’ And it frustrates the 

hell out of all of us! 

Well when I got laid off it created an amazing opportunity for Brian and I to take our 

skills and use them for a higher purpose! Why not offer the fun, pampering super 

model experience to real women? Real women of all shapes and sizes who just 

want a ‘Me Day’ with all the fun hair and makeup, the champagne and chocolates; 

along with the coaching they need to get them into the best poses to flatter their 

figure and look. On top of this another paramount part of what we do is to tell each of our clients individual stories. Who they are and why they came to us is a very 

important part of their day. And we want to honor that and make it a focusing point in 

their images and video. After all when they take their products home and view them 

over and over again, we want our client to fully embrace and value the power and 

beauty they had on their day and cherish it forever.

4. What genre’s of photography do you shoot?

The main genre’s of photography and video we shoot are Fashion, Glamour, Beauty 

and Boudoir (we are open to other requests also though). We chose these as they 

are the most flattering and empowering narratives for our clients. These are also the 

genres our clients crave and strive for in life. And we want to show our clients we are 

all capable of being the gorgeous woman on the front of a magazine, we just all 

need a little help a long the way sometimes (even super models get help, guidance, 

pose coaching and retouching lol). 

When it comes to a boudoir session with us, it is all down to personal choice. We do 

not push or pressure any of our clients to have a boudoir session done, you are 

either into it or your not. Their are plenty other beautiful, sexy and empowering 

genre’s you can choose from, that will inspire you and make you look and feel on top 

of the world! So you choose, what kind of session would you like to do??? 

5. Who is your photography and video experience for?

Our photo/video experience is for all women, of any age. Any women, who wants to 

have a day for herself, who wants to feel pampered, who wants to tell her story; and 

wants to celebrate herself and look and feel amazing. You can be shy, a little 

nervous even, relax we will coach you through it and make sure you feel like your 

best and most beautiful self, inside and out! 

Our sessions make great gifts also! If you’re a husband who wants to buy his wife 

something extra special or if you are a fiancé who wants the day for herself, but give 

the photos and video to your future husband to be a gift. SchlickArt is here for you 

all. 

6. What do you love most about your business?

The greatest love we have for our business is the way we make our clients feel and 

how happy they are when they see their images and watch their story unfold in the 

video. Our clients are amazing women and to see their faces and the joy they feel 

with the finished products is a gift to us! 

We could not ask for more!

7. What do you love most about your clients?

Their stories! Getting to know our clients and watching them open up to us and 

becoming friends is the best feeling. We love our clients they all touch our souls in 

their own unique and powerful way. These women are truly powerful and 

courageous.

8. Where can people learn more about you? 

Website: http://schlickart.com/home/SchlickArt.htmlBlog: http://theschlickartblog.com

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Schlick-Art/328008120511

Twitter: http://twitter.com//schlickart

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/schlickart/

Or for even more info or to book a consultation, email Lindsay at: 

lindsay@schlickart.com or call us at: 1 661 313 3907

9. Where are you located?

We are located on the cross streets of Magic Mountain Parkway and Fairways Drive 

in Valencia, Santa Clarita. (North of Los Angeles) 

10. A Treat from SchlickArt to try at home: 5 easy tips for getting the best candid photos 

of your face with your own cameras:

- Photograph your face straight on, don’t turn slightly to the side, can make your face 

look distorted. - Looking straight at the camera with no head tilts or shy angles 

show’s confidence and gives a very sexy clear look.

- Chin forward and down - Most of us have a habit that when someone points a 

camera at us, we either retract our heads back into our neck and give ourselves an 

unnecessary double chin; or we throw our heads up high, we look down our nose at 

the camera and we show off our neck, chin and right up our noses. Both of these 

poses are very unflattering and look nothing like us! Instead try this... try to elongate 

your neck, bring your chin slightly forward and down; look straight into the camera 

and smile confidently. This will help hide a double chin if you have one, it will give 

you a more confident and sexy profile and it will make all faces slim and beautiful. 

Give it a go.

- Hold the camera slightly above your eye line - looking up at any camera with your 

beautiful eyes is very sexy. Also other parts of your body that are further away from 

the camera will appear slimmer, for a more flattering look.

- Smile with your eyes - I love this one, I use it a lot! When people have trouble 

smiling and they feel they either over do it or under do it, I tell the to smile with their 

eyes first and then tell them to bring in a slight smile with their mouths also. It gives 

an amazing result and everyone is always happy with the way they look. So go on 

try smiling with your eyes first...

- Pop a hip and put your weight on your back foot - The is for head and body shots... 

I am pretty sure every women is guilty of this at some time when they have their 

photo taken. I know I sure am! We are women, we have curves, it’s a fact of life. We 

all carry a certain amount of weight in a part of our body we don’t like and if we stand 

straight on to the camera with no decent pose we are not going to be happy about 

where our weight is distributed.

There is a better way... try this... Turn yourself lightly on an angle to the camera, pop 

you hip back away from the camera and put all your weight on you back foot (the foot furthest away from the camera). You see, everything further away from the 

camera will always appear smaller, it is the way lenses work. So if you were to put all 

the weight on your front foot and pop you hip forward, your front thigh would look 

abnormally large, no matter how small you are. So give it a go and make yourself 

feel super sexy in your own images.

We hope you enjoy these tips. Let us know what your think by leaving us a 

comment. 

To check out SchlickArt’s Photography and Video website and to see what wonderful 

things we do for women - Click Here: http://www.schlickart.com/home/SchlickArt.html

Stay Beautiful, inside and out,

Love SchlickArt! 

Golden Globes 2013 Hits and Misses

I know it’s not just me; you watch the award shows for just the fashions, right? That's my favorite part! Here are my thoughts on the best and worst dressed. (Overall, I was kinda disappointed in the lack of creativity and effort that went into this awards’ shows’ looks):

BEST DRESSED (not in any particular order):

1. Heidi Klum in Alexander Vauthier – she does white like no other and was the only one who was able to pull off the high slit this go-round. 

2. Emily Blunt in Michael Kors – this gold, lace cut-out dress caught my attention because of the quality construction and shape of the dress and also of the simplicity yet sexiness of the look.

3. Taylor Swift in Donna Karen Atelier – she looked phenomenal in this mermaid-shaped gown besides the mishap of being able to see her side-boob-chicken-cutlets.

4. Jennifer Lopez in Zuhair Murad – this woman gets it right every time. She just knows how to make a statement and dress for her body.

5. Amy Adams in Marchesa – this blush-toned dress flattered her figure in every way and I really love that it almost blended in with her skin tone to look ethereal, yet sexy.

WORST DRESSED: 

1. Anne Hathaway in Chanel – this was just way too safe. Not what I would expect from her after her performance in Les Miserables, but she still looked classy. 

2. Lucy Lui in Carolina Herrerra – this would have been a flattering dress aside from the pattern. 

3.  Jessica Chastain in Calvin Klein – this sea-foam green dress did nothing to flatter this woman’s terrific figure. The top portion of the dress not only had no structure, but it looked like it was 3 sizes too big. 

New Year, New Career, and I’m Praying, a New Perspective

Hi kids! It’s been a while but as we move into 2013, I’ve had a few interesting things in the works that have now come to fruition. First, I’ve started my own fashion styling business. Second, I’m also working as a bridal consultant, something I’m so excited about simply because now I can say I’m watching “Say Yes To The Dress” for ‘research purposes’. LOL. Anyway, at the end of this month, I’m also doing a photoshoot with SchlickArt, which I’m nervous about for a variety of reasons. Which brings me to the “New Perspective” part of this blog.

I’m sure you all know by now, whether through personal conversations or through a few of my videos, that I’ve struggled with my weight pretty much all my life. And coming out of the holidays, it’s no surprise that I put on some weight again after all the goodies that have been abundantly around. In the past, I’ve done Weight Watchers, which really did work, then I just got lazy and fell back into my old bad habits. I won’t even mention all the other shit I’ve tried over the years to lose weight. Either way, I’m not exactly comfortable at the weight I’m at right now. This ties back around to the photoshoot that’s coming up in a few weeks. I’ve debated taking diet pills to get me down 15 pounds by the end of the month, drinking nothing but diet juices, yada, yada. But you know what? I love food too much to starve myself. I’m too old for that shit anymore. I get too damn cranky if I go without eating. But what about those pictures that will be around forever and ever?? Here’s the conclusion I’ve come to after getting super depressed and anxious over just thinking about not eating the food I love anymore. Fuck it. I’m letting it go…for now. I want to get back on Weight Watchers again and document my journey. It’s not going to be easy. But that’s for later.

Right now, today, I’m going to stop eating only junk food because I think for some reason I won’t ever have it again and just start to eat normally again. Truth be told, the whole purpose of this photoshoot is for REAL women to appreciate themselves as they are IN THAT MOMENT. So it doesn’t matter how much I weigh, or if I’m breaking out, I’ll look the best I can at that time and show myself that I’m still one sexy thang, even with a few extra pounds on my body. After all, my worth should NOT be based on a number on the scale, yet I’ve allowed it to. So for this photoshoot, I think it’s going to be my most raw one to date. I’m scared as all shit, but in that fear I’m hoping to discover a little more self love. I need to practice what I preach and I’m not always the best at loving myself when I’m down. So stay tuned to see the photos and video of the shoot. And I encourage you to reexamine your perspective about yourself and body image. EVERY woman I have ever come across has some type of issue with her body. Why? Why do we focus so much on our flaws and not see how damn sexy we are??

My Breakup with Zara

I usually don’t do this, but in this case, I had to say something publicly because I am so disappointed in a company that I’ve had a long, seemingly happy relationship with for years.

Here’s the situation: last week, I bought a pair of $80 shoes that were as kick ass as could be. I didn’t think about how close it was to “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday”. In any case, I bought those bad boys and wore them a day later, of course getting compliments on them everywhere I went (even if just to CVS). I just so happened to look online for any upcoming Cyber Monday deals and I thought, well let’s see what Zara has to offer; low and behold, I found those same shoes on sale for $50! “Ok, customer service isn’t open this late, so I’ll call in the morning”, I thought. That’s important because later they will say that since it’s ‘sold out’ online and in the stores that they can’t do anything about it. How the hell was I supposed to get this resolved in the middle of the night?

Well, when it came time to call Zara, not only was I transferred 5 times between customer service, corporate and the Santa Monica store (because apparently one doesn’t have control over the other and vice versa – I call bullshit), but they told me that their systems were not set up for a price adjustment. Now, I could have been a complete bitch and just cleaned the bottoms off of the shoes (because they had been worn), put them back in their box with their tags (because I do save tags for a few weeks in case of something like this) and marched right into the store, taken them back then rebought them. But it just wasn’t worth my time. Instead, I thought being the ‘great’ company I thought they were, they would make an exception for this loyal customer and credit me back the measly $30. You know what they told me? After ‘reviewing the situation’, they called me back and said ‘The only thing we can do to resolve this situation is have you send the shoes back to the online store for a full refund’. Umm, how is that resolving the situation in the slightest? You want me to TAKE BACK an item I wanted? THAT’S your solution? Of course I asked for a manager multiple times; and guess what…none available…shock.  That’s when I took to writing about it, because I’m tired of big companies treating us little people like shit. $30 bucks to Zara isn’t shit compared to what that $30 means to me. But even that’s beside the point.

As women, we develop relationships with our favorite brands. Hell, I just endorsed Zara after someone asked me on my blog about where to get a particular kind of pant. But when something as small as a $30 credit could have resolved this situation, it’s also $30 that causes a situation as big as this that could make me as a loyal customer feel betrayed, just like in a relationship. And that’s what it is (well, was)…a relationship between loyal customer and company brand. However, as in any relationship, sometimes there is a situation where the other party shows you their true colors.

Now, this is going to be a bad breakup, because like most of those, you usually go back for a late-night booty call hoping they will prove you wrong. So I may have the urge to shop there again, but I will try hard as hell not to go back to a place that has wronged me, not over something so small.

You know what, maybe this is all my fault. I shouldn’t have been as thoughtless as to buy ANYTHING right before Black Friday. But I did, and for that I take responsibility. But I also know, after having worked in retail for 5 years, that a company can do MANY things to ‘makeup’ to a customer how they ‘wronged’ him/her. But Zara didn’t even try with me. They basically gave me a “fuck off” response. What about a ‘20% coupon off your next purchase’ or a ‘$10 off coupon’ – shit, I would have been happy with that and that wasn’t even half of what I was asking for back. But you live and you learn. Thanks Zara for proving to me how wrong I was about you. 

Kim Kardashian – “Reality” Real or Really Real?

Yes, I used the tag line from a Sprite billboard, but it applies here too.  For the longest time, I’ve looked to Kim Kardashian as a measure of beauty because quite frankly, men (including my husband) go goo-goo ga-ga over her and in fact she looks closer to what I look like than those stick-thin blond-haired, blue-eyed models on the magazine covers. And being even more frank, she IS pretty damn hot. That statement however comes with a caveat. Does she really look like that, like for real for real? I remember photographs of her when she first came on the scene (no pun intended) and she looked a little pudgier and not as ‘tight’ as she does these days.

So I did some digging, looked around for some comparison photos and found a site that offered a great set of ‘before & after’ pictures. Now, I always knew she did some extra stuff that she wouldn’t admit to, but I just couldn’t figure out what. She HAS admitted both in interviews and on her show that she has gotten Botox and Fraxel-lasered (both wrinkle-remover treatments), but those topical treatments alone could NOT account for the dramatic difference in her look. She has also lost weight, but again, that could not account for so drastic a change. So what kind of cosmetic surgery has she had done? Most people have speculated only a nose job. Not only do I think she’s had a nose job (it’s thinner than it was before), but I also think she had a complete face lift. On one of the pictures below, you can clearly see where her cheekbones were vs. where they are now (they’re a lot flatter).  It’s a subtle difference in of itself, but when looked at as a whole, she looks completely different. I’m not saying I’m judging one way or another, it’s just what she decided to do for herself and her image. Is that something you would ever do? I’m not sure I would, but then again, I don’t know what I’ll decide to do in 5, 10 or 15 years either. What are your thoughts?