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Headshot - Anna Jelstrom

Victoria J. Swilley has had many unique experiences throughout her young life. She loves to explore the arts, and has significant training in singing, musical theater, dance, and piano. She has also dabbled in acting, drawing, watercolor, cross-stitch, stage makeup, crochet, pottery throwing and painting, videography, film editing, home decorating, henna body art, living statue, photography, modeling, mask making, poetry, handbells, music composition and songwriting, mime, handbells, cosplay, pop bottle band, and more.

Victoria has also had interesting experiences outside the arts, including caring for exotic animals, breeding rabbits, and traveling to Jamaica to help build a church. She enjoys beauty and glamour, and, besides being known for her colorful and sometimes eclectic style of dress, she enjoys styling formal hair (she's done two weddings) and applying dramatic makeup.

One of Victoria's great passions is cooking, despite her egg, chicken, and dairy intolerance (and her husband's pork sensitivity). She loves baking cupcakes and cookies, can punch down an incredible pizza crust, and makes a mean shepherd's pie. She is getting hungry just thinking about it.

Besides being an artist and a homemaker, Victoria is a loving, if sometimes absentminded, wife, and is also mother to Clark, an active and talkative toddler. Since her husband is a caregiver for children with Autism (not a highly paid position at the moment) and she is unable to take a job outside the home, she knows how to pinch a penny. A nutrition-conscious cook on a tight budget, she knows how to make healthy meals for less.

She has rented several old but charming places, (including one with an extremely slanted floor), and she wholeheartedly embraces the shabby-chic style. She loves to shop at thrift stores for things from clothing to curtains and cheese graters, and enjoys sharing her saving savvy with others. Sunlight and humor are very important to her.

Victoria has a quick eye for detail, especially when it comes to writing, and she keeps a blog of grammar errors, Gahrammar.

Victoria and her husband recently moved to Orlando, Florida, from Jackson, Mississippi, where they met at Belhaven University. Victoria received her degree from Belhaven in Vocal Performance with a Musical Theater Emphasis in December 2010. She has been a barista, a delivery driver, a Halloween Expert, a consignment store employee, a character attendant at Walt Disney World, and a barista again. She is currently working as a film actor, freelance copy editor and proofreader.