Amanda Rose blog

#PhotoADayJune compilation

This is my sixth photo-a-day challenge from FatMumSlim and I have mixed feelings about what you will be viewing below.

First off, I knew I'd be doing a colorless month.
I wanted to since January, and figured on June 1st, eh, why not this month?

However, it was a [challenge upon challenge] to not
only scavenge for the prompts, but to also make sure they would
work with the gray filter.

Some did more than others:

I think the grey takes a lot away from the photos and from how happy June made me, but I commited to a look and stuck with it.

Despite their dreary first impression, I look back at these images and it makes me over the moon to know June was made up of sleepy sleepy mornings, sugar, sun, hope, calm, dreaming, new music, planning, teacher bonding, the world's greatest pastrami, quality time with dad, meeting Kelly Purkey, creating my very first art journal, learning how to emboss, lots of kitty-time, the end of the school year, bright clothes, time with loved ones, major sun-basking at the beach, and an upcoming reveal (hint: sneak peak in Day 30's photo).

June was glorious.  

My favorite month begins tomorrow. :)

I will be #PhotoADayJuly-ing. Will you?
Its look is going to be the complete opposite of June's.
I hope it takes forever and a day to get to its compilation post.
I want July to last decades.

xOxO,

Past Photo-A-Days:
May
April
March
February
January

Follow me on Instagram to see my 'playing along' daily,
or come back July 31st to have another compilation party here with me. :)

Hi, |week 25|!!

Well, hello, readers and peepers!  I'm happy to say that I'm caught up and ahead of the game a little bit...already thinking about |week 26| and |week 27|'s 'looks'.  

Starting Project Life six months ago has to be one of the best things I could have done for myself this year.  It eases stress, it's doable and managable, it makes me think of my week's events in a different way, it gives me opportunity to use some of my favorite things: paper, stamps, stickers, glue, hole punchers, etc. and it makes me happy & creative.

Right side:

Left side:

I started the right side with a photo of my unmade bed stamped with two kitties, perfectly depicting my two kitty boops almost every morning:

I wrote a type-o, but nothing I can't fix in post. ;)

My green-tipped teacher toes were a theme of |week 25|...and blogged about HERE.

My Summer Manifesto was created in |week 25| and made into a sweet divider.

The left side, top, was about my weird, fiery desire to have a humungo calendar in my life.

The look of my classroom and school the last whole week 'til Summer made up the middle section.
I brought the laptops in for the last time, making the classroom look like a call center.
On the last Friday of the year, we had a yearbook party and ice cream. 

Lots of pinks and light teals in this spread.

I Mister Huey's blasted that corner with Taxi, and sweetly wrapped up the week's spread with this insert, above.

I notice that a lot of what I blog about ends up in my *Project Life* album.  This could get redundant, but I think it translates in a totally different way virtually than it does on paper.  It's a different experience with each memory through each medium.  Do you agree?

Anyway, as expected, Summer Vacay-yay-hey-cation has been wonderful.  Here's hoping how wonderful it's been will be communicated in my future PL spreads.  Tee hee! Yay!

Happy Friday, fellow scrap freaks!

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For more of my past Project Life spreads, go HERE.

For more on Project Life itself, go HERE.

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xOxO,

ready. set. summer.

I don't think anyone is more excited than me that it is Summer.  

Today is my first official day of Summer Vacay-YAY-HEY-cation, and I am dancing and singing in the streets of Queens, people (some of those posts might make it here...I mean, it's Summer, I'm off, and who knows what I'm capable of!)

That's a big chunk of why I'm so excited: I have big plans for this blog here, big plans for projects, and some mega {movement} going on.  Yeah.  Remember...{movement}? My one*little*word for the year 2012?  Well lookie lookie who's got some time on her hands to make moves in the right direction!  I like to move it, move it!  You like to...MOVE IT!

Heck!  I already got one box checked off my Summer Manifesto list:

The picture of that chubby-tushied bikini-glad Baywatch wannabe at the start of this post?  Yeah. Me.  The boyf and I beached it with friends on Sunday, and I pretty much had a ball.  I basked in the sun for 6 and a half hours...and got the ill sunburn to prove it.

               .  .  .

Oh my God...ear to ear.  I am a giddy goose.

I abosolutely love the Summer.

I absolutely am its bitch.

Happy happy.

Love & enjoy your Thursday, pretties.

xOxO,

 

two *first years* come to the end. jubilation.

Today is the last day of school, and Meaghan (the blonde) and myself truly did survive.
I caught Fifth's Disease; her class had bed bugs; we both were on the cusp of emotional and mental breakdowns at numerous times since January.

However, 'tis the end.
I've felt excited for things to come to an end, but this feeling is taking it to another level.  :P 

It feels like Christmas Day, except 10x better because the holiday we're celebrating is 'SUMMER' and it's two months long. *giggidy*giggidy*

I might be back later to do a 'reflection' post on my first year teaching now that it's OVER over, or I might let the sentiment escape me, and slide straight into happiness overdrive (kinda already did) and GET ALONG WITH THIS FABULOUS SUMMER.

I don't want to waste a drop of it!

Happy last day, fellow NYC workers!
This year was maddening, wasn't it?

xOxO,
 

so sorry |week 24| my *Project Life* album

Yes, it has come to this point.  I'm apologizing to my *Project Life* album.  Haa haa!  Ridiculous, I know, but this phrase kept circling around in my mind as I threw |week 24|'s spread together yesterday. 

...came alright considering.

Don't forget the left side:

That lightning bug insert is one of my favorites in the album so far. :)

Used tons of Studio Calico paper, stamps, and embellishments.
I LOVE those Amy Tangerine alphas. 

I would be working on |week 25| today since
Sunday morning is my PL time, but I'm going to the
beach...first time this year...and we leave at 8am.

Happy Sunday!

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For more of my past Project Life spreads, go HERE.

For more on Project Life itself, go HERE.

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xOxO,
 

green-tipped teacher toes

Green-tipped teacher toes were trottin' me along this whole last full week of the school year.

Monday, the first day of sportin' them, my Melvin goes, "Miss Zampelli, new shoes? Ugh!"

"Ugh? What do you mean 'ugh'," I replied.

"No no," he said, "old lady...old lady."

He was in complete protest against them.  The next day I wore them again and when I lifted my foot up to show him he said, "Horrible.  Just horrible." :P

I think I worked 'em alright...

[shoes...Modcloth]

Gosh, only 3 and a half more days of the schoolyear left.

"We can hardly stand the wait, please Summer Vacay, don't be late!"

xOxO,
 

it's here.

manifesto - a public declaration of intentions, objectives, or motives

Let's face it, lovies: SUMMER IS THE ABSOLUTE BEST.

I have been filling up notebooks since September with awesome activities to make up July and August.  Only after seeing Ali's & Andrea's & Elise's specific Summer Manifestos (and looking up what a 'manifesto' actually was), did I think of fleshing one together myself.

I tried to choose objectives and intentions that were documentable (would make good pictures) and completable (had a clear end point).  They are a mix of things I've been dreaming of doing since January, and things that come with Summer territority that I want to make sure I take advantage of.

I shall be recording the events on the list & other unplanned summer-fabulous happenings in my Summer2012 Art Journal and my *Project Life* album and on this silly blog, of course. :)

I'm zing!zoom! to the moon! that Summer is here.
It makes me want to sing opera.
It is my lover.

...'cause let's face it: SUMMER IS THE ABSOLUTE BEST.

Happy first day of (yes!) Summer.

xOxO,
 

a [28th birthday card] for one of my oldest friends

The birthday-girl, Danielle, is to the left in polka-dot.  Her brother, Jason, is on the right wearing a giant 80s bow and skirt.  And me: I'm in the middle fancy princess-ing it up.

We're about 7 or 8 there.  Jay's prob 3.

Danielle is 28 today. Holy adulthood.

This card came together in about an hour after I went browsing drugstores for a card.  A card for one of my oldest friends, a friend who has crossed the line from friend>>to>>family.

The conclusion I came to: Store-bought cards don't cut it.  They just don't.

Happy, happy 28th,
friend-like-a-cousin!

and

Happy card-making,
my fellow paper-crafters!

xOxO,
 

a calendar project

A wild desire to have a huge calendar and organize my Summer days came over me yesterday.  
I became overwhelmed with the amount of teacher things I still have to do (with only 7 and a half days left of the school year), and yesterday I finished fleshing out my Summer Manifesto (post coming Wednesday).

I wanted to start plotting out when certain summer intentions would take place.

I headed to STAPLES and got this guy, along with some post-its.
I've been pretty obsessed with this Stendig calendar, but the wild desire to have a giant calendar and plot the points of my next few weeks flooded over me yesterday.  If I ordered a Stendig, it wouldn't have gotten here in time to fill that immediate need for a calendar project in my life. ;)

Project Lifer that I am made sure I labeled which week was what...week 25, week 26...

Each day looks like this, above.
Date (which I might make bigger and bolder next revamp),
A tracking post-it, to track my WeightWatcher Points, and the exercise I did for the day.  Also, on the bottom, it says WF? with a square, and BT? with a square. Those stand for 'wash face?' and 'brush teeth?' since I want to get into a habit of doing BOTH before bed. 

The blue tab is for my planned blog posts.  {{blue - blog}} <--See what I did there? :P

After completing this calendar, I felt better, less stressed. The act of creating always does that, but the fact that I created something to help me organize happenings helped too.

It doesn't have a definite home yet, so I placed in on my dresser for now.
It's in my face, and the first thing I see when I wake up.

As much as I want to have a relaxing summer, I want to have a productive summer.
I think that was the point of this project. 

All I can say is the post-its are in place to do so. :)

Happy Monday of the last full
week of school before Summer!

xOxO,
 

Don't Tell Mom The 3rd Grade Teacher's Dead

I don't know.
Something about this ensemble reminds me of SueEllen Crandall's backyard runway show.

It might be the early 90s blazer-look that was 'in', or the bright + the graphic which was happenin' a lot in that movie.

Maybe it's the pony-braid.  I never realized 'til fleshin' out this post that SueEllen Crandall put me on to the pony-braid about 20 years ago. Hhhmmm... :)

In other mentionings, this maxi will probably be worn every single day this Summer.  I think it's the bohemian in me who likes the shapeless-sack fit. Cool and airy, yet the print makes it fresh.

...and a sneak little surprise at the end...my Carmen photobomb. ♥ ♥ ♥

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[both pieces bought at Loehmann's (my new spot)]
[link to the maxi]

[banana blazer first worn HERE]

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Happy Saturday!

xOxO,