Hi, I’m steph!

My pursuit in this life is to be joyful (& consume as much ice cream as humanly possible). I’m an enneagram 7— mostly extroverted, but I fill my introverted alter ego’s cup by sitting in a bubble bath every once in a while. I am delighted to talk about food and hear people tell me what they’re passionate about. 
I’m ridiculously honored to be the daughter of Egyptian immigrants. My parents came here with nothing and cultivated in a profound way that gave me opportunity to be where I am today. I proudly started my own floral design business in May of 2020. I love what I do, and I love empowering other’s to pursue the things that make them happy.
I have known for about ten years I wanted to use my hands to make beautiful things. One day I sat down with my then boyfriend, now husband, on a trip to SF. We were at our favorite chocolate shop, Dandelion (that place is pure magic). We were trying to come up with a name for this “thing” I wanted to do, still very unsure of what it would be. I had a moment of revelation where I remembered my best friend telling me she got this sense that I was supposed to go after the roots in my life, not branches– alluding to not going after cosmetic/ visible issues, but matters of the heart– digging into childhood wounds, pain points, coping strategies, etc., and from there things would flourish: that’s where the name Mauve Roots came from.
Immediately after my husband and I got married, I went through this “dark night of the soul”. It felt like as I entered into a new season of life, I had a lot of new space and permission to do some internal mending. There were a lot of survival mode tendencies I had to let go of if I wanted to learn how to do more than survive and actually flourish. I spent about a year working HARD on myself, on healing…uprooting and sowing new seeds.
It was almost like a cause and effect: as soon as I started to be a healthy, whole person, my callings started to reveal themselves to me. One day, a couple of weeks before Mother’s Day 2020, I took a chance and asked people on my Instagram stories if they needed Mother’s Day florals and if they’d trust me to do them. I remember telling myself if five people asked me to do flowers for their mom’s it would be a win. The response was overwhelming— I haven’t stopped learning and refining my skills since.