Amanda Rose Zampelli | the blog

This is the lifestyle / craft / everyday blog of Amanda Rose Zampelli - designer, crafter, smiler, and internet friend.

black & white & beet salad

Black-n-white-n-beet salad | Amanda Rose Zampelli

I would love to blog more food-themed posts, so I suppose I'll start here. ;)

Yesterday I created what I'm calling the black & white & beet salad. I say 'black & white' because of the black olives, black beans, and white feta cheese crumbles. I say 'beet' because there's a heck of a lot of beets. Other ingreidents listed below:

Black-n-white-n-beet salad 03 | Amanda Rose Zampelli

This was a hearty bowl of salad, people.  Enough of it could act as a whole meal for sure. I used Wishbone Light Italian as a dressing, but I imagine salt, pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar would taste as delish. Enjoy! ♥

Tuesday, October 07, 2014 at 01:00 PM in food, HEALTHY EATING | Permalink | Comments (0)

snippets / august 2014

AUG snippets
  • this month I started meditiating daily, like, really meditating, and the benefits have been nothing short of a miracle
  • my cousin, Lauren, demonstrating the bread-in-the-mouth trick while cutting onions
  • mom and her new BBQ
  • chinese food dinner with friends & a fortune
  • new job/new shoes -- isn't that a rule somewhere?
  • a dinner with mom, dad, and sister the night before my taking off for Texas
  • my first Moscow Mule
  • that afternoon I was craving authentic Mexican for lunch, and found El Paisa through yelp.com
  • yellow|beige|navy new decor for that Texas balcony thing

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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 January | February | March | April | May | June | July) 

Sunday, August 31, 2014 at 10:11 AM in family, food, meditation, seasons | SUMMER, snippets | Permalink | Comments (2)

snippets / july 2014

SnippetsJULY2014

  • from where I watched 4th of July fireworks this year
  • cousin Rachel, Ness, and me, and my first ever wedding photobooth experience
  • Carmen and I like to party with a bold cup of coffee topped with cinnamon, outside barefoot in the sunrise, while everybody's still sleeping
  • me + my girls on Field 6 at Jones Beach sippin' on my specialty Pink Lemonade
  • July is fly | heat + pool + swimming + lazy afternoons
  • that Tuesday night Ness and I raided the home decor items of our public library and had a night-in flagging the best of the best with post-its
  • I want to be skinny but I also want to eat cookies #thestruggleisreal
  • I love my cousin, Claudia, to the moon and back because she's the only person I know who gets as excited as me to stick your face in a corn cob hole and ham it up for the camera  
  • some art I got framed, and Alejandro overseeing 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

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 at the end of every month. 
(see snippets of January | February | March | April | May | June) 

Thursday, July 31, 2014 at 07:07 AM in family, food, friends, HOLIDAYS | 4th of July, seasons | SUMMER, snippets | Permalink | Comments (0)

the perfect almond milk fruit smoothie

IMG_0887

I'm getting so garsh darn good at making these, it should be illegal for me to make them.  Very 'Breaking Bad blue sky methamphetamine 100% pure goodness', except pink, and not a potent psychostimulant. ;)

02 Hello Smoothie

First, I fill half of the NutriBullet with ice, just under the 'MAX' line.

03 Hello Smoothie

Then, I pour in almond milk (I use this one) right up to or a little below the top of the ice line.

04 Hello Smoothie

Next, peel and throw in one ripe banana. Discard peel.

05 Hello Smoothie

Wash and de-stem a handful of strawberries.

06 Hello Smoothie

Lately I've been adding a peach, no pit.

07 Hello Smoothie

Finally, the bullet is filled and ready to blend.

01 Hello Smoothie

The combination of ingredients above give the smoothie just the right flavor and consistency.  If it's still a bit watery, I'll add a few more ice cubes and blend it again.  I like it thick, yet creamy. ♥ Enjoy!

Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 09:46 AM in food, HEALTHY EATING | Permalink | Comments (0)

My experience with a Three-Day Detox Cleanse.

3DayDetoxCleanse 01 | Amanda Rose blog

On Monday, I wanted to start this Three-Day Detox Cleanse I found on skinnyms.  I wanted to do a cleanse rather than just 'watch what I ate' because I wanted to stomp the cravings I've been having.  I thought by eating super clean, I'd push the restart [00:00:00] on my body's crave clock, and then after the three days just eat consciously and in moderation.

I chose the Three-Day Detox Cleanse from skinnyms. because it wasn't just juice.  It wasn't just lemon water. It was jam-packed with three meals + snacks, incorporated beans, quinoa, avocado, and food you chew (important for me) and I felt that I wouldn't feel hungry completing it.

3DayDetoxCleanse 02 | Amanda Rose blog

I woke up Monday morning at 6am, and got to work cutting and chopping for the assigned wake-up drink, breakfast smoothie, veggie+nuts mid-morning snack, and lunch garden salad.  I naively thought, "I'll just wake up and chop some veggies, no big deal."  OVER TWO HOURS LATER, the chopping was done and the meals were in place. I had shopped ($$$) the day before, and made the Fat Flushing Soup assigned for dinner the night before, so my day was set and ready for the cleanse.

3DayDetoxCleanse 03 | Amanda Rose blog

I followed the plan nicely, and for the first few hours of my day, felt good. Awake, even though I hadn't had coffee, and light. All good things.  Around 10:20am, when I had planned to have my mid-morning snack of veggies+nuts (see image above) I was hungry for it.  I was craving a slice of bread with peanut butter or something, but knew I had this big bag o'veggies in place, and filled myself with that instead. So far, so good.  I focused my attention on work, and got to around 1:30pm when I sat outside for lunch.

3DayDetoxCleanse 04 | Amanda Rose blog

On the menu for lunch was a Garden Salad with Lemon & Oil, and not a dinky one.  It was full, hearty, and contained a whole half of an avocado and almonds.  It was something I'd eat for lunch NOT on a cleanse, which was a major deciding factor for trying this particular one.  Again, when it came time to eat this salad, I was hungry for it.  I ate the whole thing, and finished around 2.

3DayDetoxCleanse 05 | Amanda Rose blog

I got back to work, and at around 2:30pm it hit me.  The biggest, most massive, explosive headache of ever.  I worked for another two hours, but at around 4:30pm, had to stop. The headache got worse with each passing 15 minutes, and as I lay horizontal on the couch, looking up side-effects of detoxing, here's what I found out: expect headaches and fatigue.  Something about your body working overtime to rid of the 'toxins' (<--a word I don't exactly understand) that it causes all of these weirdo reactions. 

3DayDetoxCleanse 06 | Amanda Rose blog

My mom - who also wanted to try this cleanse with me - came home from work around 5, walked through the door, and said "Ugh, I'm so exhausted." She said she was drowsy all day, couldn't concentrate, and felt like she was getting a cold.  We were both miserable. My nutritionist-sister assumed my headaches were from food deprivation and malnutrition -- which was NOT true.  I was no where near hungry.  She told me to eat a slice of bread, and if I thought that a piece of bread would help, I would have eaten it at this point, but I felt so nauseous. The thought of one more veggie/cracker/anything in my mouth...VOM.

Fast forward a couple of hours: I'm bent over, hacking up my mid-morning snack and lunch garden salad into the toilet. Yeah.  I got so sick. The next morning my sister said it was probably too much fiber and roughage all at once, and my body rejected it.

My three-day cleanse detox lasted a day. Two-thirds of a day, I guess, because I never made it to dinner. For the next two days of the 'cleanse' I just kept easy on my body: eating grilled chicken and hard boiled eggs and bowls of the Fat Flushing soup (really good, actually).  In essence I feel like I cleansed, but not as hard core as I thought I was going to.  

I wouldn't say I don't recommend this particular detox cleanse, because - like I said at the start - it's not based on deprivation, which is good.  However, I'd recommend incorporating only 70 or 80% of it into your normal three-day diet routine.  I think incorporating TOO MUCH clean eating TOO FAST was the problem for me.

I might try it again using my advice above, or I might not.  I hope this account was informative in some way. The road to health in the society we live in today will always be a bumpy one filled trial-and-error. This situation was no different.

Have a happy day, and make good choices. Thanks, as always, for reading. ♥

Thursday, June 19, 2014 at 06:55 AM in food, HEALTHY EATING | Permalink | Comments (2)

his week back in NY + a bit on my perfectionism

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Tomas's week back in New York, last Saturday to Saturday in May, was filled with love, family, food, friends, cake, sunshine, shenanigans, laughter, and good quality time.  It was filled with so much more than my past four months without him...and that seems to be the theme everytime we see each other since he moved to Texas. ...so what am I doing?  Yeah, that's been a resounding question lately.

I recently came across this notion: EVERTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON. It struck me in such a way, and explains a lot of how I felt the week he was back in NY.  You see, I'm in the process of recovering from my perfectionism -  a damaging, all-encompassing personality trait that I didn't even realize I had until recently.  My perfectionism manifests itself in many ways, but most notably in always searching for what I can learn from things to make myself better. {deeeep sigh} Yeah. I'm in constant pursuit of the reason why things happen that I'm not enjoying them as they happen. With Tomas here last week, things were happening...and those things involved all you see above. Great things: Playing with your food! Wearing a dress and silly glasses and posing for picture with friends! Throwing frisbees! Getting dessert mid-afternoon! Drinking red wine on a Thursday! ...things life is supposed to be made of.  Not pondering all the time. Not making sure you do life 'right'.  Everything happens. Period. Not 'for a reason' - because then your life becomes about fulfilling some reason's prophecy, and that's plain exhausting.

I think that's all I want to say about that. ...and that I miss him.

I suppose we'll see where the rest of 2014 takes us. ♥ I suppose we all will. ♥ Have a good day! 

Thursday, June 05, 2014 at 06:13 AM in anxiety, family, food, friends, personal, recovering from perfectionism, seasons | SUMMER | Permalink | Comments (2)

a watercolored mini book using The Cinch

Let's take a deep breath everybody, {{inhale, exhale}}  This is a jam-packed post. Get all the way through it, and you'll find a GIVEAWAY at the end. Haa!

Happy Friday! If you are visiting me for the first time from the We R blog, then I'm very pleased to meet you!  Thanks for stopping by. My name is Amanda Rose Zampelli, and I was recently hired by We R Memory Keepers as a product designer and as a bonus: I get to blog a bit for them too!

01 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

Today I'm excited to share this watercolored mini book I created with the help of the We R tools and supplies you see below.  The Cinch, some coil binding, one of the beloved TAB punches and adhesives, and part of an AlbumsMadeEasy pocket page were the basis of what helped me construct my mini book.

00 We R materials | Amanda Rose blog

First, I cut an AlbumsMadeEasy pocket page down the middle to use the plastic 6x6 pockets as protectors for my front and back covers.

00 We R materials cut | Amanda Rose blog

Those pockets also dictated the size of my photos. Because the front and back covers were going to be 6x6, I made the photos the same width, but and inch shorter in height.  The photos were printed 6 inches wide x 5 inches long, so I would have room for the tabs.

00 We R materials photos | Amanda Rose blog

Here's where this project gets interesting. ;) I could have printed my 6x5 photos on photo paper. I could have trimmed my photos to size, put them in my mini book, and called it a memory-keeping day. I, however, had an idea: I wanted this account of my Monday to be in watercolor. Yes, it involved some extra steps. Yes, it took about 2x longer than if I just used printed out photos, but it's how I wanted this mini to go. (And I love the result!)

Okay, here's how I did it: watercolor paper (trimmed to 6 inches x 5 inches), your photos, and...the kicker...CARBON PAPER. Oh, the crafty miracle of carbon paper.

00 We R materials after tracing 4 | Amanda Rose blog

I put the carbon paper between the watercolor paper and my photos, and with a ballpoint pen, traced the edges of the things in my photos.  What results with this method is a line sketch (water-coloring book of sorts) of your photo, ready to be painted in.

00 We R materials after tracing 2 | Amanda Rose blog

Once all my photos were turned into line sketches, I put them in order, painted on them, let them dry, jotted a few notes right on top of the painted images, and attached the time via my We R TAB punch that the event occurred.

00 We R materials tabs | Amanda Rose blog

After all my tabs were on, each page was ready to be punched and binded using the Cinch.

00 We R materials using cinch | Amanda Rose blog

It's amazing how much of a 'cinch' the Cinch really is (I had to do it). So simple, and within minutes, my mini was perfectly (like, literally flawlessly) bound.

00 We R materials binding | Amanda Rose blog

The rolling and twisting of the curly white binding wire was one of my favorite parts. 

29 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

Mini book bound, tabs in place...

28 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

...and now I have a sweet little 'Day in the Life' watercolored mini book account of my March Monday.

00 We R materials after tracing | Amanda Rose blog

Without further ado, I give you my watercolored documentation - one handcrafted page after another:

03 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

04 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

05 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

06 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

07 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

08 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

09 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

10 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

11 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

13 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

14 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

15 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

16 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

17 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

18 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

19 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

20 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

21 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

22 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

23 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

24 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

25 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

27 watercolored mini | Amanda Rose blog

'Day in the Life' is a fun documentation project.  I've done some in past (see here). Documenting it the way I did above allowed me to practice sketching the lines and shapes of everyday objects, and have paint brush play with my watercolors.  I also was dying to break out that Cinch! Haa haa!

I'm coming to you next week with another Cinched mini book, but one very different from the one above. Stay tuned!

You can catch me here on this blog daily, find me on instagram | twitter | pinterest | bloglovin', or pop in every Friday to see my crafts and fun things in collaboration with my new work family at We R Memory Keepers.

...and speaking of We R Memory Keepers, they're hosting a weekend-long GIVEAWAY! How would you like to win all that you see below? An Instagram Album, Corner Chomper, and Instagram Jouranaling Card pack! To enter, go here https://a.pgtb.me/T1w4hK.

We r mem April 7 giveaway

Friday, April 04, 2014 at 05:00 AM in Alejandro & Carmen , around here, crazy cat lady, DAY in the LIFE, family, food, house | HOME | heart, watercolor, We R Memory Keepers | Permalink | Comments (9)

a HIS&HERS Saturday 2000 miles apart

Tomas is still living in Texas.  If you can recall, he moved there back in August.  I visited in September.  He came home for a few days in December...and has been back in Texas since.

His

His Saturday, March 29th, was spent at the Mugbug Bash. Its Dallas/Fort Worth's celebration of everything 'spring' with live music and crawfish.  He sent me videos of sunhsine and sleevelessness. He sent me videos of inebriated cowboys and people swaying back and forth on a big lawn to the live music in the air. He sent me the above photo.  A styrofoam container of crawfish|potato|corn and a cold beer on a wooden picnic table in the sunshine.  

Do you know how I wish I could've been there?

I say this all the time -- but really: WHEN are teleportation machines going to be a 'thing'?! 

My Saturday looked a little different:

Hers

My Saturday, March 29th, was spent at Best Market. It's where dad and I can find the best deal on fruit. Go ahead. You can yawn. In the photo above, I captured dad claiming the world record for the longest time it took a human being to choose a hunk of provolone cheese.  My Saturday, folks.  Not to mention the downpour of rain.

2000 miles apart. Two very different Saturdays. Just where we both are at the moment.

Happy April, everybody! Thank goodness we got here! ...and and don't forget! It's April Fool's, so look out for all your favorite blogger's fake pregnancies! It happened last year here & here! Haa haa!

Tuesday, April 01, 2014 at 07:11 AM in food, personal, seasons | SPRING | Permalink | Comments (0)

snippets / march 2014

SnippetsMARCH2014

  • my week in SLC, Utah at the We R Memory Keepers coorporate office
  • my new favorite shirt
  • Friday night with some friends I've had since high school
  • St. Patty's Day corned beef and cabbage / the once a year we're Irish
  • hellllooooo, new iMac / upgrade
  • the big box of We R goodies delivered to my house that made it feel like Xmas in March 
  • Jamina's two littles were knocked out in the backseat after a brunch date in the city
  • I biked after dinner (go exercise)...I biked to Carvel (whoops)
  • the feather of the bird Alejandro caught and ran to my room with / lucky thing survived

-------------------------------------------------------------------

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'. :)  

I plan to post snippets of my month at the end of every month. (see snippets of January|February)

At the bottom of each one of my snippets posts, you'll also find a link to a page entitled "Reflections on my Monthly Goals". You can go to that page here.

Monday, March 31, 2014 at 05:00 AM in food, friends, snippets | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOW TO MAKE my infamous TOMATO SALAD

Tomatoe Salad 01 | Amanda Rose blog

My dinner last night was pretty much what you see above multiplied by a whole bowl of it, and half a loaf of bread.  I looooove tomato salad, and while there are a lot of ways to make tomato salad, my way is the best. ;)

Ingredients:

    sliced tomatoes
    chopped garlic
    oregano
    parsley
    salt & pepper
    olive oil
    balsamic vinegar

I put the ingredients into a big bowl, in the order listed above, and mix.  That's it!  It takes longer to slice the tomatoes and chop the garlic than it does to make and eat this dish.  I don't get particular with the amount of each ingredient, because everybody's different.  I probably put more chopped garlic than most people prefer.  My mom adds too much parsley when she makes it, in my opinion.  Therefore, I would suggest adding the ingredients to taste.

I usually pair the tomoato salad with italian bread and eat it like a mock bruscetta.

So good for you, yet so delish.  I hope you enjoy!

Signature03

Thursday, August 22, 2013 at 08:03 AM in food, HEALTHY EATING, recipes | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

older posts »

  • a Mile a Day in March
  • PROJECT LIFE 2015
  • 30 in 30 LIST
  • OLW 2015: PROOF

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Recent Posts

  • recent pins & other stuff over at amandarosezampelli.com
  • that time I was Selena for Halloween
  • Project Life 2015 // intro page for album 3
  • PHOTOBOOTH @ Danielle & Jerry's Wedding
  • my first LADIES CRAFT NIGHT
  • recent pins // OCT 2015
  • october : currently
  • snippets / september 2015
  • i Periscoped!
  • two recent projects

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