Amanda Rose Zampelli | the blog

Project Life 2015 // inside cover

With the completion of my December Daily 2014, I was fully ready to dive into PL 2015. After collaging some clear mambiSTICKS sayings stickers on this scrapbook layout, I decided to the same thing on the inside front and back cover of my Project Life album for 2015.

The pattern of positive affirmations will hit me every time I open the album. This pleases me. It also works nicely with my one little word for this year: PROOF, because when I read something like "There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind. - C.S. Lewis" I think, Oh yeah?! PROVE IT! (Hopefully the events this album documents will.)

I used white clear stickers from the five mambiSTICKS packs above. You can shop your own HERE. 

Tomorrow I'll be sharing my intro page, and soon I'll share the spreads I made for the month of January. Project Life 2015: IN FULL EFFECT. Let do this! -- ♥ARZ♥

my time @ CHA 2015

I've wrote about getting to go. I posted one of the videos I was in. I wrote about outfits I wore. I wrote about when I met Amy Tangerine. This post is all the rest about my time at CHA 2015 that I wanted to get down before a new month begins and it becomes "something I did a few weeks/months ago".

I spent most of my time at the me & my BIG ideas booth (which you can see more of here). I took tons of photos, revealed new products via instagram, and talked with visitors and potential buyers. On the opposite end of the room housing the Tradeshow was the We R Memory Keepers booth. I often walked my way over to creep and stalk my Love Notes collection that was on display. I touched the paper and posed like a ham.

We had blisty.com, scrapbook.com, and Noell Hyman from paperclipping.com visit the booth and shoot video starring yours truly. It was nervous wreck, but I felt ready. Speaking about product and talking craft & hobby is something I hope is a part of my career for years and years to come. To have the show be my first real exposure to that was awesome.  With each video, I got more relaxed in front of the camera, and I wished I could have done more!

Two things about my time at CHA were my favorite. The first thing was being with and meeting so many creative ladies who share my passion for this industry. We talked memory keeping, the lengths we scrapbookers go to get good photos, products we liked from each company, how to get into mixed media, and many other things only people that love to MAKE understand.

The second thing about CHA that was my favorite was the profound sense of being where I belonged. I was amongst other creatives who enjoy paper and images as much as me, and have an intense desire to express themselves through craft, and who understand how a 'making' hobby can make a happy life. 

In short - CHA was OMG, and I am so grateful for the amazing start it gave me to this new year. ♥

December Daily 2014 // days 21 to 25

She's done. My December Daily 2014 is done, and put in its own album. 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 has been my system -- and it's helped me to finish.

See a flip-through of my finished DD spreads days 1 to 25 below: 

Day 21 was a pretty great, lazy, chore-doing Sunday. I washed my sheets; Alejandro lounged. My cousin Claudia came over to spent some holiday time with us. Pasta and salad was for dinner. Tomas and my sister came over and we four played Cards Against Humanity for the first time.

That game is a lot of fun. Things were said, like, "Maybe she's born with it...maybe it's a stray pube."  Pretty ridiculous.

I had a regular workday Monday on day 22, but Claude was over, and later on when I went ot drive her to the train station for her field trip into NYC, we stopped and had the below photoshoot moment. I love the nine shots we got, and I love the page that came of it.

On day 23, I baked some cookies for Tomas's family. There are so many of them, and they all give gifts on Christmas Eve. To have something to hand back to them, I baked up two giant tubs of chocolate chips, placed them neatly in pretty Christmas tins, and labeled each one "baked with love from Amanda".

At night, we went to Tomas's sister Anna's house, and had dinner with his parents. It was a lovely, peaceful time.  

The next day was Christmas Eve! Day 24 had me wrapping some gifts, and singing Eminem's Rap God song, but with a different meaning. Then, I got ready for my traditional Christmas Eve spent with Tomas's wonderful Filipino family.

The night included the usual: singing karaoke, playing card games, a glorious lobster dinner, and handing out presents at midnight.

Finally, day 25: Merry Christmas! My dad gifted me a free Leo's Tire Shop t-shirt he got when his tire was fixed. ??? 

My sister and my best friend, Jamina, each gifted my an Alex+Ani bracelet. 

Then we went to Uncle Matt's for our traditional brunch buffet. We brought the karaoke, so people sang. 

We left around 2-ish, and my family went back to our house to take long naps. We woke up and had fried shrimp and more pasta. That's how we do on Christmas. 

...and there it is! Done. Days 1 to 25 of my December 2014 documented and in a book, and done. I wasn't able to finish my December Daily the past two years, so getting this one done makes me happy.

In many ways -- 2014's Christmas and all its happenings is the Christmas of my twenties. The same places, the same routines and traditions... I look forward to the holiday season morphing now that I'm in my 30s. Hopefully somewhere in the next 10 years I'll be able to host Christmas at my place, and my kids will be there. 

In the meantime, I have this album.  I love the the little washi tape party that I created by sticking a strip on the seam of every page. I shall be continuing that in my Project Life 2015. Stay tuned! Thanks for visiting! -- ♥ARZ♥ 

See my DD 2014 days 1 to 12 here. // 13 to 16 here. // 17 to 20 here. // See DD 2014 beginnings here. // See my DD 2013, 2012, 2011. 

Awkward Family Photo

Oh, that silly photo! Olya (@paintpaperstudio), myself, Stephanie, and Ali were walking around CHA 2015 when we stopped and all purposefully looked at the same point in the sky. We were poking fun a couple of hours before this photo about how that sometimes happens, and so here we are, making sure it did. ;)

I've been in the me & my BIG ideas office the past few days getting work done and drooling over new product ( did you see this video?) and talking about updating the mambi blog, and I squeezed some time to create this layout.

It will work perfectly for the new Instagram Challenge that mambi launched with the hashtag #mambiREDandPINK. You can head to their blog to read about it, but basically if you create art with any red and/or pink mambi product and post it to instgram with that hashtag, your work could be featured on the blog the day before Valentine's Day. Sounds simple and fun enough, especially if you do that anyway.

Here's to crafting! ...and instagram! ...and color challenges! ...and Fridays! Always Fridays. ♥ ♥ ♥

my new planner & the video from CHA 2015 by scrapbook.com

At the end of this post I left you in suspense about a planner that was hitting the market and would be my new planner now that my Erin Condren Life Planner has come to its end. Working for me & my BIG ideas, I knew they were developing a planner system that would be hitting store shelves this spring, but hadn't seen the planner until this past weekend at the show, and man! am I excited to start crafting in it (as I know all of you are as well).

The video above (featuring me - so funny!) gives an overview of the planner, add-ons, and embellishments mambi has created for their system. Thanks for watching! ♥ Amanda

CHA, HERE I COME!

I'm not quite sure if I can write this post without choking up, but here it goes...

I landed in Anaheim, California yesterday and for the next three days I shall be attending my first ever CHA MEGA Show (also known as The Craft & Hobby Association Conference & Tradeshow). I will be stationed in the me & my BIG ideas booth since (DUH!) I work for mambi, but also hope to stop by the We R Memory Keepers booth and get an eyeful of my two paper collections I created with them in the spring of last year.

I get choked up about it because I think back to three years ago. Three years ago around this time, I was 4.5 months into my job (career!) as a classroom teacher that I worked and prayed so hard for years to get, only to realize the work weakened me and I wanted out. Then, in my throws of "what do I do? what do I do?", I stumbled upon the images of January 2012's CHA Show on instagram.

Mind. Blown.

I researched about the tradeshow, I looked up what booths were there, watched the whole weekend via social media, and knew (like that song) this is where I wanna be. I couldn't believe that people got together in a venue as big as a convention center (!!!) to love and appreciate everything about an industry I so adored. These people were just like me! ...and furthermore, the tradeshow meant that people were making a living from craft & hobby! It could be a job! It could be my job!! It was where I belonged, I decided, and I've been persuing it ever since.

That was three years ago, and today it's pretty amazing I get to attend. ♥ I might've even bought a few new pieces of apparel for the occassion. Hee hee! ;) If you'd like to follow along on my CHA adventure, you can do so via my instagram @amandarosezamp. I'll see you there and happy weekend! 

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.

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

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.

December Daily 2014 // days 1 to 12

There's something about December. ...and there's somethng about early Sunday mornings that bang the craftiness right out of me! That's what happened all moring and afternoon yesterday: I banged days 1 to 12 of my December out into my Project Life Comeback album*.

I used those red glitter 1 to 12 circle mambiSTICKS to mark the days // see pages below:

Let's start with day 1 that was two weeks ago (time is flying!) -- Tomas left for his work trip to Chicago. I was getting ready for my trip back home to NY, neighbors' wreathes were up, and I stamped the word 'December' in a bunch of my notebooks:

There was a page dedicated to this year's christmas cards that I mailed using those awesome Rudolph stamps:

Day 2's highlights consisted of making this Oda Mae Brown frame as one of my sister's Christmas presents since we both love the movie Ghost and repeat that quote to each other all the time, and the night wine made everything better. :)

Day 3 had the evening that felt like autumn.  I had gone to Target for a case of water and left with all those early Christmas goodies to myself, including a gaudy bejewled iPhone case that I'm obsessed with. Then I drove quite a ways in the dark to get Chop Burger's 10 Pepper Burger.

Day 4 was a bit gloomy for me, but all in all, productive and good. I feel like every second of Christmas time can't be a great big ball of bliss, right? It's important to document those stressful, maybe even sad, moments in the name of 'real life', but I like to maintain a tone of gratitude and 'glass half full' a majority of the time.

Day 5 I left for New York and wished 'Happy Holidays' to the tiny Texas town that had been my home for three months prior. Then it was 3 airports and 2 plane ride with my kitties.

The next day, my family and I had a Thanksgiving Re-Do dinner. Day 6's page documented it:

Day 7, my sister and I decided to take a drive to the outlets. For this story, I took a Studio Calico card and changed it to fit the details that we dashed from store to store and that my sister spent sooo much money. ;) See that on instagram here.

That card also flips up to reveal my sister in the drive's seat of the photo. Flip up pocket found here.

Day 8 ended up being a whole page photo since mom & I put the tree up that day. I love how it turned out with the digital journalling and the clear white mambiSTICK.

I used another whole photo for day 9, with some digital journalling to tell the story. Besides this morning-cup-of-coffee-by-the-tree pic, I worked all day and didn't take any photos.

Day 10 was not my day, and it snowed.

That card also flips up to reveal a photo and story underneath, but that day was not my day. Moving on.

I went to the gym on Day 11, for the first time since...umm... Anyway, that was the most notable happening. I used the stamp trick Elsie exaplined about here on the top photo to make the pattern, and then stuck a red 'tistheSeason mambiSTICK:

Day 12 had me wrapping the first present to be wrapped of the season, and I did it in fancy white and silver woodgrain wrap from Target. It was to be brought to a Girls' Grab Bag dinner, which my friend, Danielle's, boyfriend ended up crashing:

There you have it, folks!  Somethings that have been working:

• using those red glitter number circles
• washi tape on the seams
• mostly digital journalling
• average 1 to 3 pics per day

Thanks for visiting!  I look forward to sharing the rest of my pages with you soon!

See my DD 2014 beginnings here. // See 2013, 2012, 2011.

 --- ♥ ---

*Remember last week when I said someboday at the airport stole my PL album from my checked baggage? Well, my bad! I had packed it away in a box to shipped instead. FedEx delievered it safely to my dsoorstep. I felt like such a boob! Haa!