Amanda Rose Zampelli | the blog

What're you doing New Year's...New Year's Eve?

Happy NYE, loves! I thought I'd post this oldie but goodie as I love the two of them and their version of this song. This NYE my plans may or may not include all of the following: a hearty breakfast, blow drying my hair, The Walking Dead marathon, meeting my new neice (!!!), a nap of epic proportions, making chicken wings, wearing some ivory sequins, push-pop confetti, a large DD coffee with triple espresso shot, and a house party at my homegirl's crib. So what're you doing New Year's...New Year's Eve? Whatever it is you're doing, I wish you a happy & heartfelt evening. See ya next year (that never gets old).

snippets / december 2014

• the coolest Rudolph stamps I used to mail my Christmas cards

• sister shopping day to the outlets

• mom as the ribbon-whisperer

• girls night grab bag + Manny

• Claude & me x 9

• first wrapped present of the season

• that Friday evening in NYC to se eThe Christmas Spectacular w/ these clowns

• oh, hi, gym! remember me?

• Christmas karaoke

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a bit about snippets:

Blogger Manda Townsend posts snippets of her life every now and then, and after seeing her ode to snippets post, I commented that I would join her this year in 'snippetting'. :)  

What I find I usually include are those images that get lost in the shuffle -- ones that I would probably never include in a post or instagram, but are attached to a fun memory or a highlight of the month.

I plan to post snippets of my month on the last day of every month. 
(see snippets of Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | June | July | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov of this year) 

New Years 2015 Free Printable (!!!) for PL

The final days of 2014 are upon us, friends, and to celebrate I designed these three New Years POCKET PAGES™ cards that are available for FREE DOWNLOAD on the me & my BIG ideas blog HERE.

Head over there, click the download link, print the page, and cut them out! It's that simple!

I printed mine out on regular 8.5 x 11" white cardstock, for the thicker consistency, but plain paper will do as well. Print it out on glossy photo paper to make the black really pop.

I cut mine out with a paper trimmer, and journalled and check-listed. I love the idea of adhering clear white mambiSTICKS stickers to the card, maybe in a cluster like I did with this project. 

Enjoy! Head over to the me & my BIG ideas blog HERE to download and print for yourself.

2014: the year with my olw 'work' ( please read all the way to the bottom)

Twelve months ago, I wrote about how 'WORK' was the word I chose as my one little word for 2014.  I chose it because at the end of 2013 I was no longer a teacher and finished with design school, and I needed to find work. I knew this was going to be the major focus of the year, and by the end of 2014 I wanted a job I enjoyed doing and to be on a career path that was IT. 

Fast forward to today and I am happy to report I have achieved my goal. :) This past year, I got paid to design + create product + craft + blog and it's been so. much. fun. It's had its fair share of challenges, but when the career is right, the challenges only fuel your passion. I love what I get to call my work, and am I still awe-struck that I actually made it happen. For those of you who've been reading my blog and have followed all my steps in this career change journey of mine, then you have some idea of the struggle to get to this place. But I made it, and I hope to be here forever designing + creating product + crafting + blogging.

Here are some images of the happy work I got paid to do this year:

My 10 year old self would be so proud, and my 30 year old self knows it's just beginning. Three years ago I was neck-deep in teacher work that didn't fulfil me, and in less than two weeks I'll be neck-deep in CHA Tradeshow goodness! It's so fantastic, I might pee.

One little word 'work': MISSION COMPLETED, dear friend. ♥ xoxo, Amanda

 UPDATE:  So here I am, back writing at the bottom of this post a day after pushing publish because I need to recant a bit. Everything you've read above is true, but the smug way I wrote it was wrong. I read it back to myself in horror as I made it sound like I chose the word 'work' in January and then magically I found work I enjoyed by the end of the year. No, no, and NO. Keep reading...

My word WORK worked me, honies! (...and that's putting it lightly.) I worked my booty off in January updating my portfolio, reconstructing my resume, e-mailing bunches of places I wanted to work, etc. Looking for work and starting your career over are two things that are NOT FUN. In February, I found work with We R that was exactly what I'd hoped for: designing scrapbooking product and working from home doing it! Hooray! Story over? Nope. I worked so hard, drudging through new territory and working through the greatest bought of creative block I've ever encountered. The learning curve and the pressure I put on myself to learn it quickly burned me. Somehow, I worked through the creative block, and banged out two paper collections for We R. Hooray! Story over? Nope. After 4 months and 2 completed paper collections with We R, American Crafts bought the company, and my job as product designer was terminated. I was back to square one, looking for work again. That was June 18th.

My grandpa died June 20th. There was my olw again, and my family and I worked through his wake and funeral. I continued to look for a new job, sending out my resume, now with updated "oh by the way, I designed two paper collections" added to it. My dad was rushed to the ER on July 14th. My sister was rushed to the ER on August 2nd. My family worked through those, too. This was our summer. This was my year with work.

Not to mention having to work through a major knock-me-to-my-knees bought of anxiety early in the spring, something that I'll probably always have to work at overcoming, and of course, my move to Texas, to work on Tomas and I, and independence, and the nagging feeling that I'm responsible for the happiness of everyone around me. This year with work was no joke. The job I talked about earlier of getting paid to design + create product + craft + blog? THANK GOD FOR IT! I landed it in August, officially started September 1st, and as I said above, it's been really terrific.

I worked for that work, and worked through obstacles to do that work well, and it was not as easy a path or year as I originally made it out to seem.  I suppose I wanted you all to keep that in mind when you reflect on your word from the past year, or your word for the upcoming year.  Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom. xoxo, Amanda

December Daily 2014 // gold glitter album cover

Happy December 26th, all! Here's hoping your Christmas Day was glittery and full of joy & happiness - just like the making of this December Daily 2014 album cover I threw together the other day!

I know I said in this post that I planned to keep my December Daily right in my Project Life COMEBACK album, without worrying about creating a separate book for it, but the album was filling up fast after completing DD/day 20. I'm learning as I go with this new 6x8 format, and first lesson: they get thick quick.

You can head over to the me & my BIG ideas blog to get info on the the gold glitter alphabet stickers I used, as well that 'Christmas Cheer' chipboard sticker on the spine - which gave the cover a nice pop of festive red.

I'm proud I'm four documented days away from this project being completed, and look forward to sharing the final days 21 to 25 with you soon. ♥ xoxo, Amanda

take some 'machine-gun selfies' this Christmas

Hi, all! It's your internet pal, Amanda, and I'm writing this morning to remind you to take pictures tomorrow and Thursday. In fact...take what I'm calling machine-gun selfies which refer to a bang-bang-bang series of silly-faced selfie pictures of you + someone(s) you love.

Set yourselves up against a red or green backdrop, turn on the self-facing camera option, make sure both of you are in the frame, and press that 'capture' button incessantly. My cousin, Claudia, and I followed these steps and we got the nine gems you see above (oof! that last one) perfect to use for holiday scrapbooking. In fact here's the page going in my December Daily album:

BONUS: Upload your machine-gun selfies to the PartyParty! app and you'll have the cutest 15-second stop-motion movie to post to instagram:

DOUBLE BONUS: Print your favorite one and gift it in an ornament!! See below.

Hope you try it! Have fun snappin'! Happy almost-Christmas!

December Daily 2014 // days 17 to 20

Zoom zoom zoom through December we go, and Happy Christmas week already! My December Daily is five pages/days away from being finished. I love that I'm gettin'er done this year in big part to the system I've been sticking to of using those red glitter me & my BIG ideas number stickers to mark the days, finalizing each page with a coordiating washi tape on the page protector's seam, and (mostly) journalling digitally.

See a flip-through of my finished DD spreads below:

Day 17 didn't have much going on except a bit of shopping in the evening. So to compensate for the lack of photos, I made one whole pocket Christmas stickers! Why not! Go nuts! 

When the sun went down on day 18, I laid down and caught a Coldplay concert on T.V. I watched the whole thing and sang along to each song, so that made it in the album.

Then, using more of those photo flips, I was able to include four more photos from day 18 of when I went to my friend Jamina's house and celebrated my first ever Hanukkah night!

Over each photo, I stuck a clear white mambiSTICK holiday sticker like I've been doing throughout my December Daily.

I was invited to the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall on day 19, and I enthusiastically accepted the invitiation! That evening recorded below:

Day 20 had me up and at 'em to the gym, running Saturday errands with dad (surprise surprise), and meeting Tomas and his family for Chinese food dinner in Flushing. I documented those things below and embellished with tons of me & my BIG ideas holiday goodies:

Finally, I created a page dedicated to the cats and the tree because there's something about the Christmas tree that these cats (all cats? all people?) can't seem to get enough of.

That's it for today!  Thanks for visiting!  I look forward to sharing the final few pages of my December Daily with you soon!

See my DD 2014 days 1 to 12 here. // 13 to 16 here. // See DD 2014 beginnings here. //
See my DD 2013, 2012, 2011.

december : currently

following suit with one of my favorite bloggers 

gifting the other half of this "BEST BITCHES" bracelet to my friend, Jamina.

marvelling at how spectacular The Christmas Spectacular was. OMG.

loving everything in the light of the Christmas Tree.

planning a blog redesign.

reading Brain Lock and finding it most helpful.

shopping for CHA.

documenting my December.

enjoying the new episodes of The Little Couple.

cooking pork tenderloin with sauerkraut for my cousin Lauren's dinner party.

ordering the shrimp parmigiana.

listening to Colbie Caillat's album Gypsy Heart.

wanting to get back down to my magic weight number.

moving that heavy rope up and down as fast as I can at the gym.

walking 3+ miles from my sister's apartment to mom's house in the starry night sky.

receiving a letter and Christmas card from Bianca, my past student, that melted my heart.

drinking Starbucks caramel kcup coffee in Christmas mugs.

holding and rocking little Luke Erikson to sleep in our living room.

watching the boops interact with their new little kitten-brother, Jack Black.

lighting my first menorah.

dreaming of a white craft space.

thinking about how hard of a year 2014 was for me, but how much growth, good change, and kind helpful new souls I've met.

feeling grateful for 2014 and hopeful for 2015. 

December Daily 2014 // days 13 to 16

Days 13 to 16 are in the bag...or the book, actually. I'm enjoying the system I developed of using those red glitter me & my BIG ideas number stickers to mark the days, finalizing each page with a coordiating washi tape on the page protector's seam, and (mostly) journalling digitally.

See a flip-through of my finished DD spreads below. I'm using a 6x8 SN@P! album, Ali Edwards stamps, and Studio Calico and me & my BIG ideas embellishments.

Now, let's walk through each day, starting with Day 13. It was a mostly lazy Saturday morning, followed by an errand-running afternoon with dad, including a trip to IKEA.

Day 14's morning and afternoon was spent crafting days 1 to 12 in my December Daily album. In the evening, my cranky, stressed college-semester-finishing sister went to dinner at SMASHBurger with me, and then I went back to her quaint & cozy apartment to help her with a new 48" T.V. I walked 3.3 miles home under the starry night sky and took pictures of lit houses.

Our burger dinner & a lit house can be seen by flipping up the pocket. Flip-up pocket found here. 

Day 15 was uneventful. I worked all day and watched Gone Girl with mom in the evening.  To document it, I filled up a blank calendar card, put my (15) red glitter mambi circle sticker where it belonged, and wrote 'gone girl with mom' in the notes section. I also used two self-timer portraits of Jack and I in front of the tree with mom's my new mug "I ♥ elves".

The right side 'I love having NO commute' page came from a spontaneous burst of creativity that occurs every now and then. It's something I've been thing a lot so far this cold December, and felt right to include in my DD.

My cousin Lauren's Birthday was Day 16, so the fam came over Tuesday night for dinner. A few collage images of the night was the page in my DD to document it:

...and that's all she blogged. Thanks for visiting!  I look forward to sharing the rest of my pages with you soon!

See my DD 2014 days 1 to 12 here. // See DD 2014 beginnings here. // See 2013, 2012, 2011.

RECENT PINS // DEC 2014

sources // 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

These are some pinned images I've recently added to my Pinterest account. To look at them collectively, you can tell what mood I'm in and where my brain's been at. This month...all holiday and DIY and pink + gold + plants.

1 // gift wrap in my colors + letter stickers and snarky holiday messages...HULLO!

2 // over-the-knee socks + to-the-knee boots

3 // PAPER. CACTI.

4 // must make this easiest gold garland of ever 

5 // mambi's jumbo silver glitter alphas to work on a plant pot

6 // christmas party table perfection

7 // a gallery wall to aspire to

8 // DIY gold leather him & her stockings with the furrr

9 // DIY pom-pom letters (!!!)

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Any particular thing(s) recently inspiring you?

(see past pins here)