What is a prop stylist?

A lot of times when I tell people about my work as a prop stylist, they go all 'deer in headlights' and usually say something like, 'what's that?', 'huh?', 'you do hair?' Here's what a prop stylist does:

What in hell is that, y'all ask? It's a chianti bottle and it's having candle wax dripped on it for a photograph that will eventually make it's way on a page in a major magazine...they'll be some clever service point to you telling y'all how to take your chianti bottle & reuse it as a candleholder when y'all set that effortless dinner table for your festive holiday party!

Oh, wait...y'all didn't think that those gorgeous shots of rooms/homes/people/parties just happened to be that way, naturally and a photographer just snapped a pic of it? Not always, but you're seeing smoke & mirrors, my friends...or in my case, from my shoot yesterday...bottles and candlewax...

This lovely moment was actually executed by the uber-talented, Andrea Greco, aka Candy, who's a crafting fiend!

So next time y'all are thumbing through the pages of your favorite magazine, wondering if people really live/eat/entertain like that, all the time? The answer might just be no...a prop stylist made it look that way!!!