Who is behind Stray Curls? + Photos

I genuinely hope you’re having a good week.

This week, I thought I’d do something I don’t normally do: Share something personal. 

Stray Curls is completing 10 years in 2025.

That’s a decade of drawing, writing, and connecting with you.

That’s an entire decade of my life.

I started this website in 2015 when I was 22 and a half years old.

Now, 10 years later, Stray Curls is still helping people start and build websites/online businesses.

Although most of my content is available for free, I do sell eBooks in my shop that focus on specific challenges.

And of course, I also coach people who want help with their blogs or make blogging a legitimate business that earns them a full-time income.

I feel so incredibly honored and lucky to be able to do this from my home, and absolutely nothing compares to the joy I feel helping others find joy in their work.

So, I think it’s about time I share a small part of my life with you.

Maybe you’re curious to know who runs this website or maybe you just like reading autobiographies.

Either way, this one is for you. =)

My Origin

My name is Angela Mary Vaz, I was born and brought up in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. I’m a 32-year-old Blogger and Illustrator currently living in Bangalore, India.

I’m an only child who grew up reading, playing a ton of video games, and listening to the Carpenters, Elvis Presley and Jim Reeves because my mum loved them.

My mother is the entire reason why I am who I am.

Her coming back from a long day at the office to see me.

She was a big ball of energy and joy – A person who would instantly light up a room when she entered it.

Her smile radiated warmth and love.

She was also very sentimental (she’d play her mum’s favorite songs every day) and fiercely loyal. She worked at her company for 29 years before she retired due to her tiring battle with cancer.

I lost her a few years ago, but even in her last days, she continued to give me advice and strength.

She was more worried about my father and me managing without her than she was about her health.

A photo that was taken at her office desk – her favorite place in the whole wide world.

She never took a single day off from work.

She loved what she did.

She loved making a difference.

And when she got home, she’d stand for hours in the kitchen cooking elaborate meals for us. She never took shortcuts even when cooking.

She’d then spotlessly clean our home till my dad got back from work.

Due to both my parents having full-time jobs (to make ends meet), I grew up quite lonely and introverted. We couldn’t keep pets due to the strict laws in that country and that made me feel more isolated.

So, I picked up drawing.

I’d spend hours practicing and sketching almost every day.

I drew this picture from Assassin’s Creed when I was about 15 years old. 

I also developed a serious addiction to video games. After I was done playing a game, I’d draw the characters I played with.

My dad was a stationery manager so he always got me lovely pencils to draw with. 

Things changed when I moved to India for my engineering.

I started talking to people, and I realized that I was a people person. My relationship with my parents became stronger due to the long distance.

And when I finished my degree, I went back home, but I wasn’t happy.

My parents were still working and all my friends had moved to other countries to pursue their careers/education.

I also missed the trees, the food, and the animals in India.

So, after a year of dilly-dallying, I bid adieu to my folks and came back to India.

The first thing I did was get a wee pup.

Say hello to Maria Sophie Vaz, who is going to be 10 years old in 2025.

I knew I didn’t want to go to work and leave her at home all alone. So, I started making websites from home for a living since I had an engineering degree in Computer Science.

I’d talk to different companies on the phone and build them websites for as little as $29. I worked days and nights just to be able to afford the necessities and pay rent.

The work was extremely stressful, but it paid the bills.

In 6 months, I was able to save up for a drawing tablet.

That’s when I started illustrating.

I started a comic account on curly hair that exploded in 2016. I was able to grow the account organically to almost 200K followers just by talking about curly hair.

This comic account on Instagram got me so many clients.

In tandem with my website, I was getting inquiries almost every day for couple portraits, pet portraits, and custom illustrations.

I was able to work for big companies like DevaCurl, Disney, Jockey, Cadbury, Wella, and so many more. I never turned down a client.

My mum would always say, “Make hay while the sun shines.” So, I worked 16-hour days, drawing day and night, pushing almost 60% of my income every month to my savings.

By 2018, I realized I couldn’t keep up with the work. I needed something less stressful.

I was also burnt out from constantly keeping up with deadlines.

So, I moved to blogging full-time and let go of that account.

That’s when I realized I needed to learn more about SEO. So I poured myself into it, completely. I studied how to rank blog posts organically using nothing but SEO.

I taught whatever I learned on this blog via my eBooks and blog posts.

Stray Curls started doing well because nobody in 2015 paired illustrations with their blog posts. I was able to add a bit of humor to my posts – this made people keep coming back.

An added bonus to blogging on Stray Curls was I got to do something I loved – Drawing.

My eBooks (that teach blogging/gaining traffic) still contribute to a large portion of my full-time income.

A huge portion of my sales comes from my email list that’s stuck around for the last 10 years.

Since I had more free time with Stray Curls, I got myself another baby.

Say hello to Chloe Juliana Vaz who’s 7 years old right now.

Who are these glorious labradors constantly featured on this account?

You’ll notice that almost every blog post of mine has my pups featured in the beginning.

Both of these dogs are a huge part of my life.

They keep me grounded and help me maintain a good work-life balance.

I spend a lot of time hugging them and kissing them, and because I don’t have children, they are my whole world.

Maria (my white Labrador) is very pish-posh.

She’s more like a cat.

She only allows me to hold her and loves her independence. She hates leaving the house and doesn’t like walking in public.

This is one of the main reasons I wake up at 4:00 am every day to take them for a walk.

Maria loves quiet time and very soft music.

Maria – Enjoying the view from our balcony

My younger pup Chloe, is exactly the opposite.

Chloe – Super tired from playing ball with all my friends but still craving attention

She’s hyper, super affectionate, and loves attention.

She loves Maria to the moon and back and is very attached to her and me.

And although they both have their own beds, they prefer sleeping in mine.

Look at how cute they look.

This is why I have no issue sleeping in the fetus position – because their comfort comes first.

They both adore Christmas because they get a lot of gifts from my friends and me.

Why I don’t work 24/7

I live in a 3rd world, developing country where I don’t need all that much money to live a nice life.

Moreover, watching my parents never have time for themselves made me want to live a very different life from theirs.

So, I work flexible hours.

I work because I love creating and helping others.

That’s why most of my blogs are around topics I love doing.

I started a cute drawing blog that grew very quickly (I sold it later for five figures).

A cute drawing website that I sold within 2 years

And after saving what I need (for the pups and myself), I usually donate the rest to dog/animal shelters.

I spend a lot of time feeding stray dogs or rescuing animals since they are my first love.

A dog I rescued (I named her Dot) and her 5 puppies. Dot got together with another abandoned dog, Richard and together they made 5 happy babies. 

A few Obstacles along the way

Trigger Warning: Mentions of Abuse, Cancer, and Death. 

In 2015, I married a man whom I had dated mostly long-distance.

Yes, it was not a very smart move.

The relationship was terrible, and I was too naive to know better. I wish I could say that it was just unpleasant. But he was bipolar and extremely violent.

I didn’t dare to leave the relationship because I knew nobody in this city, and he kept me indoors most of the time. He made me stop talking to all my friends I’d made in college.

I was only allowed to leave the house to walk the dogs.

I never told my parents back home about my abusive relationship. All this extremely negative energy made me focus more on my dogs and my work online.

A very tiny voice in my head urged me to save every penny I earned.

In late 2019 (4 years into the marriage), I found out that he was sleeping with several women in the area, so I packed up my belongings, and my dogs, and moved to another apartment.

He had lost interest in me, and I was so grateful because this meant I could leave without ruffling his feathers.

It was also the same year I discovered my mum was diagnosed with 4th-stage cancer.

It felt like the rug had been ripped out from under me.

I took a quick trip to Abu Dhabi to help my parents shut down their lives there so that they could live closer to me (and I could look after them) while she did her chemotherapy.

I found myself divorced and was now forced to watch my mom die a slow, agonizing death. I held it together for her and my dad, who had become a mess after my mum’s diagnosis.

Caring for someone with cancer is a full-time job.

Juggling her treatment, making sure my dad was okay, and taking care of my dogs all at once (with no help) exhausted me.

I remember reserving 5-10 minutes before I’d crash at night for crying. It was the only time I let myself cave into my sadness.

I will forever hate cancer for taking my mother away.

But I am grateful to my friends, who swooped in during my divorce, reconnected with me, and started taking me out during my free time to make me feel better.

Then the lockdown happened, and I was forced to battle my emotions within closed doors – again.

After I lost my mom in 2021, I felt a sort of hollowness inside of me.

My father became even more withdrawn and introverted, and I had to deal with a lot of paperwork and the funeral by myself.

The responsibilities of helping my dad move into his own house and tying up all the loose ends aged me overnight.

I decided to take a break from blogging in 2021 and focus on my emotional well-being.

Taking a Break in 2021

I was drained.

And I knew I couldn’t pour from an empty cup.

It was probably the lowest point of my life.

I had to do a whole lot of healing and recuperating, so I started reading a lot of books written by people who had gone through cr*p too.

Other people’s words gave me intense comfort.

Knowing that others had gone through slumps and overcome those challenges helped me find strength.

Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning changed my whole attitude towards life. It made me realize that rising up again is possible if you keep hope and believe in yourself.

I read books by Vex King, Brianna Wiest, Louise Hay, Edith Eger, and so many others. I still read a lot of books – both, fiction and non-fiction.

It felt like each one of these authors was speaking to me personally.

It made me feel less alone.

And this is when I fell in love with reading even more.

I always had a beautiful relationship with books (thanks to my mum who was a History Major), but I think it deepened during this time.

I devour about 150-200 books a year now.

I also moved to a much better place – an apartment complex with a lot of greenery and security.

I used this opportunity of being alone to complete my online degree in Human Relationships and Psychology and then start a relationship blog.

I wanted to help other women leave abusive relationships or get over painful breakups/divorces.

Over the last few years, the blog has evolved to become a lifestyle blog. But I still continue to post about love, relationships, and mental health since I love writing about it.

I picked up a new hobby – playing board games.

This is a board game called Wingspan (available on Steam as well) that made me fall in love with birds. 

This pushed me to purchase this beautiful course (3 days ago) so I could learn to draw and paint birds  – perhaps this is my midlife crisis. :P

Using this course, I made my first 2 watercolor paintings!

Lol, I obviously have a long way to go, but I’ve been wanting to learn watercolor for years so yay. 

Playing board games helped me make lots of new friends in my 30s!

I also wrote a cute post here on my other blog that explains how I made friends as an adult. 

They walk into the house 1-2 times a week, and we play all afternoon and evening while bingeing on good food.

I am also thankful to have the best girlfriends with whom I hang out frequently.

I do have a major weakness – it’s for toys, books and games.

I’ve collected a lot of knick-knacks like small toys, 3d puzzles, board games, and books all featuring either food/animals or super interesting characters.

I even built a whole brand called NomNom Kawaii that was centered around my love for my pups, food, and all things kawaii, of course.

Here I am dumping my emotions into my comics.

I had to put that brand on pause because my younger chocolate pup isn’t keeping too well and she needs a lot more care and attention now.

What’s the future for Stray Curls?

I get asked this question a lot in interviews.

And honestly, the answer is: I don’t see that far ahead. 

The blogging business is so versatile and unpredictable, it’s good to take things slow and focus on what’s working right now.

Moreover, I make a full-time income from my websites so my aim isn’t very high.

Every single extra penny goes to people/animals who need it more. I love the whole concept of sharing and paying it forward.

Life has also taught me that plans can go out the window at any time.

I’ve realized that it’s best to take it day by day, step by step.

I focus on today and tomorrow.

My world is very tiny – it is made up of my dogs, the people I love, and my little toys and books.

I can look into these eyes and boop her on her nose all day long.

I try to make the world a better place by contributing to it in any way that I can because I feel like I am a speck in this universe, and a little kindness will help us all go a long way.

I have never wanted to become a big business that employs virtual assistants or owns over 100 niche websites. It’s an excellent career, I don’t deny it.

But it’s not something I want.

I love creating, drawing, and writing because it make me happy and brings me so much fulfillment.

I have never wanted to grow and become bigger than what I am right now if that makes sense.

I genuinely value peace over productivity – something that’s taken me a decade to understand.

Working 4-6 hours a day allows me to make time for reading, cooking beautiful meals for my dogs (I am their personal chef), and spending a decent amount of time with my friends who are like family to me.

I hope that in ten more years, I will still wake up excited.

Still curious.

Still in love with the life I’m building. =)

If you have any questions, I’m more than happy to answer them.