Scrappily Ever After: About Me

Hello my name is Maria aka Ddamsel in de stress and design using the name Scrappily Ever After. I’m a 42 years old wife and stay at home mom who’s passion has always been art. I started designing different things at a very early age, including rooms in my mom’s house. I went to college as a fine arts major but life took me on another course and I went to beauty school applying my talents to make up and hair design, winning several competitions in both.

After a back injury took me out of the salon I started book keeping for my brother’s web design company. Soon I found myself looking over his shoulder telling him he had too much navigate space or in one example how his design looked like the epidermis with a pimple! He got so angry he told me to design it, so I did. I sat down with sketch pad and colored pencils and designed what would be the first of thousands of websites I would later go on to design. I was partners with my brother for 10 years and was the driving force of the design department. Together we created a singles website which is how I met my husband Ed.

Ed and I eloped in 2003 then had a big renewal of vows in 2005. (watch our wedding video) Ed and I were enjoying life when SURPRISE we found out we were pregnant. Nine months later our son Anthony was born.

When my son was born I designed the photo birth announcement cards and enjoyed it so much I continued to make holiday cards year round to send out to friends and family. Within a year of my son being born I became a stay at home mom.

I found digital scrapbooking in 2009 from following different links for ideas for my 2009 Memorial Day card. I was hooked!! It didn’t take long for me to jump in with both feet. More often than not I found myself saying “I can make that I don’t need to buy it”. I started making papers in fall of 2009 and posting them on my blog. By 2010 I created a two mini free kits (Moody and FALLinlove).

The last year has been more challenging which has meant less time for designing. We found out our son Anthony as some special needs. He was diagnosed with Amblyopia, Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder(ADHD) and Oppositional defiant disorder(ODD). After many doctor appointments Anthony is finally in pre-school and has been seeing specialist for his eye sight.

Our health has been the main focus around here and I'm so proud to say I lost 40lbs. I will stay on my weight loss journey with old fashion dieting and exercise.

Now that my son is in school for a few hours a day I'm apply to design and scrap more. I'm so happy to say I am now part of the Design team at Natural Designs in Scrap Book.

Living Scrappily Ever AFter