February 24, 2020

Meet Stephanie Brady of Victory Mama in Grand Prairie

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Brady.

Stephanie, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I have always enjoyed creativity. Growing up I remember always drawing, doodling, or coloring on something. My favorite projects in school were the ones I could cut, glue, color, use poster board, and more. I also started drawing and coloring in Microsoft Paint. Classmates would ask me to draw abstract designs on paper with a black marker so they could color them in.

After high school I was planning to go to school for photography but after taking some classes some things came up and I had to start working full time to help support my family. During my 6 years in the corporate world I met Kevin at church and we ended up getting married in 2006. I was also taking care of my mom. We weren’t sure exactly what was wrong but after a lot of doctor visits and hospital stays we learned she had early onset Alzheimer’s. In December 2008 I left my corporate job to work in childcare and the following month in January 2009 my mom passed away at the age of 53.

I continued working in childcare for a few years and then my husband and I opened a pet sitting business which we had for about 4 years. In November 2013 I became pregnant with our first child. We were ecstatic. But less than a week later we found out I had miscarried. It was devastating. I realized at that point that I didn’t want to be running a pet sitting business. I realized that in every job I had, I found some way to do creative things and so I did some research for several months and decided to sell our business and go to school for graphic design. Things were on track to sell the business when I became pregnant with our second child. On August 26, 2014, my water broke. At only 16.5 weeks pregnant, I delivered our son Declan, stillborn.

After months of the worst emotional pain I’ve ever been in, depression, and therapy, I decided to go back to school the following summer. I wasn’t quite ready to be around a lot of people yet. I chose to do as many classes online as I could. I went to different creative events when I felt up to it. I remember the first one I went to was at a local university. They were having different breakouts you could attend. I remember walking into the waiting area, and although I didn’t know anyone there and I didn’t talk to anyone while we were waiting, I felt at peace with this group. I felt I belonged with them. I had never been around that many creative people before.

I have always wanted some type of career where I help people. I’m learning ways to help people with my creativity. I can help non-profits and worthy causes with design work, I can help other creatives by answering questions, or even by doing an interview like this with Voyage Magazine. I was able to go back to Brookhaven where I got my Associate’s degree from a couple of times. The first time I was able to speak to a class and give them a few pointers on what I learned by getting out in the work force as a creative. The second time I went back I was on a panel representing the graphic design field. Not only did I get to answer some questions from people in school still trying to figure things out, I was able to visit with a couple of my teachers. One of them I talked to quite often during school and he knew about my child losses. As we were talking after the panel discussion, he looked at me and said, “You are a completely different person than when you started here. It really was healing for you to come here wasn’t it?” It really was. It was my own form of art therapy.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I don’t think anything is ever a “smooth” road. There will be bumps, flat tires, and accidents along the way no matter what you decide to do. What matters is how you respond to it. If you have a flat tire, do you just sit there and hope that someone comes to help? What if no one does? If you do just wait and blame the road and blame the tire, then you are staying stuck in victim mentality. Instead, you find a way out of that situation whether it be calling someone and asking for help (which is hard for some people to do), change the tire yourself if you know how to do it, or even find a Youtube video to figure out how to do it yourself. Don’t get stuck.

I spoke about this a little bit when I went back to Brookhaven to speak to one of the classes. Don’t let the negative things that happen hold you back. Things in life actually prepared me for things I have dealt with at work and things I have dealt with at work prepared me for things I’ve dealt with in life.

I’m a big fan of therapy. Even though I haven’t let huge losses stop me from moving forward, I realized there are some things that hold me back in certain ways and have been through some traumatic things that I need to work through and I am currently in trauma therapy. It has already helped tremendously and the counselor uses art therapy so that is a huge bonus!

When I was looking for the full time job I have now, I didn’t just apply to this one and hope I got it. I was applying to everything even if I wasn’t fully qualified (advice I had gotten from a former student at Brookhaven). In fact, the weekend I applied for this job, I applied to about 40 different jobs. The majority of them, I never even got a “we’re not interested” response.

So, keep going no matter what comes your way.

Victory Mama – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I am currently working full time as a designer, doing freelance on the side, and am working on designs that I will be able to sell on shirts, bags, mugs, and more! This is another way I am looking forward to helping others with my creativity. My business name, which I proudly got trademarked in 2019, is Victory Mama. Wanting to accomplish several things within a business name can be quite an undertaking but I think I have pulled it off. I wanted to incorporate my faith, my angel babies, my fur babies, and my love for the 40’s and 50’s. The word Victory represents how we are victorious in Christ, the victory roll hair style (which my logo is a set of victory rolls), and I want to celebrate the victories I have experienced even after the tragedies I have experienced. The word Mama in the name represents the ways I am a mama.

Victory Mama will have a Victory Mama line (Christian and inspirational designs), an Angel Mama line representing child loss, and a Fur Mama line for pet owners. I will launch with a couple of the Victory Mama line designs in 2020 and hope to add more later in the year.

The Victory Mama website was launched at the end of 2019 and will also be launching a Facebook group for mamas to celebrate their victories, big or small. It will be a positive community to focus on our wins! The site and group are both in the beginning stages but please feel free to view and join – I would love to have you along for the ride!

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Probably going back to school and finally getting my degree 19 years after graduating high school.

Pricing:

Contact Info: