Photoshoots are part of my job these days as a sports + travel + fitness writer here at The Blonde Side, and no matter how incredibly awkward I am behind the camera, I still love it and have a great time doing it.

And I’m super lucky to have an amazing team behind me – for this particular shoot I had a new’ish team, but it was a blast. Since I’m no model, by any stretch of the imagination, just like my sport’s column, it’s always a work in progress.

My photographer this go-round was Oakley Almberg – she’s kind of new to the photography game and does a lot of fun personality shoots (my favorites!) – I’ve seen her work with the gals at lululemon here in Houston so we decided to partner together and have some fun. She definitely brought some good ideas to the table and we had fun attempting to use a hair dryer as a fancy smancy “wind blower” like all the models have on the beaches, haha.

Needless to say it didn’t work out quite as expected, but I’m always up for trying new things.

My hair and makeup was from my trusty and faithful Andrea Simmons over at FaceForward Weddings. I keep telling her that her business name suggests she only does hair and makeup for weddings, but she does all kinds of stuff and is always willing to work in the confines I set forth and always makes me look better than I ever do on my own. It’s definitely an art what she does. Andrea rocks out hair and makeup for any kind of photoshoot or just a special day, definitely look her up.

Styling was a combo effort with my weirdly sporty style paired with the likes and expertise of the lovely Kim Dunn with Luxe Style Labeling. Kim works on shoots all over Houston and puts together some of the most awesome outfits, but she lets (and suggests) you keep your own style.

I wanted to rock my USA Olympic jacket and she let me – she just paired it with something a little more fancy and added in some jewelry and voila – she made it look better than if I was on the medal stand in Sochi (well, almost). I’m always amazed at how easily Kim can create an outfit that I already owned and would never have thought of and make it look brand new and top of fashion. She’s definitely into layers and jewelry. Thanks to her, I’ve learned those are the two main keys to fashion success.

And the styling helped quite a bit thanks to my favorite Houston store, Tootsies – a full line specialty store in West Ave. They have anything from wedding day fancy to a casual bar night – and I love to take some of their more sporty clothes and dress them up and do the exact opposite with their dressier shirts and take them down a notch by wearing them with a pair of pink chucks.

Check out this heart tank top from alice + olivia – I also wore this to a Rockets game – the red hearts were Rockets colors and it was my subtle and cutesy way of saying “I love the Rockets!”

For the shoot I paired it with an incredibly amazing Rachel Zoe varsity letterman jacket – that pairing was actually thanks to Kim’s suggestion, you know, since that’s her job and all.

Probably my favorite outfit was paired with the simple olive green

Majestic Pleasures tank top and the alice + olivia camel colored pencil skirt (the top picture)- it kind of showed off just how hard I’ve been working out and pumping iron at Sculpt Fitness!

And of course I loved the gold and flowy Trina Turk sleeveless shirt – and the pink chucks just really set it off, just my style.

Thanks to my entire glam-squad for making me feel oh-so-pretty! xoxo to you all!