Amanda Rose Zampelli | the blog

pineapple tea light holder DIY

Hi, lovie! Just popping in today to tell you that I shared some images and a little backstory of this sweet pineapple tea light holder DIY over at my website: amandarosezampelli.com Click on over to read it, if you like, and thanks so much for visiting here and there and anywhere I might be. I have lots of ideas and stories and crafts and fun things I want to share, and am slowly but surely working them in on the new site. I'll be sure to let you know when they all come together! <3 <3 

Have a great day!

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)

make a mini Starbucks™ red cup embellishment

Hey, guys! I was putting together the first two pages of my December Daily the other morning, and I managed to make-shift this mini red Starbs cup from one of their coffee cozies that I took home.

Above are the supplies I used: Xyron Stickermaker machine, scissors, mini stapler, paper trimmer, some red paper from this mambi pack, and a Starbucks™ cardboard coffee cozy.

Below is what you should get after completeing steps 1 and 2:  a little cup-shaped cutout from the coffee cozy.

Below is how I used it in one of my pockets.  Stay tuned for the upcoming post on the whole page. :)

See my December Dailies from 2013, 2012, and 2011.

burlap + gold DIY Thanksgiving Centerpieces

Happy November, all! To get it started on my blog I have these burlap + gold centerpieces to share with you today. They were a DIY craft I made for the me & my BIG ideas / Hobby Lobby collaboration that took place last week on the mambi blog & Hobby Lobby social media.

Supplies needed:

long-stem burlap flowers, styrofoam balls, mason jars, wood skewers, gold & brown fabric, 2 sheets of white card stock, 'The Good Life' jumbo mambiSTICKS, gold foil BIG mambiSTICKS alphabet stickers, scissors, double-sided tape, heavy-duty wire cutters 

If you stop right here, these signs could make the perfect bunch of Thanksgiving photo props!  

*Note: the wire inside each stem is about a millimeter thick, and a heavy duty cutter is need to snip through. I found those pictured above in the 'Electrical' section at Loews. 

Ta Da! All done! I know it seems like a lot of steps, but they're relatively simple. They look awesome in-person, and I look forward to using these for years to come.

DIY glam Halloween wall art

A few weeks ago I came across this Instagram image with the caption "Pro Tip: Giant glitter letters make instant wall art. You're welcome."  I read it and thought SO. TRUE. ...and the great news is that me & my BIG ideas - the company I now work for - is the pioneer of giant glitter letters!

I knew this project was going to happen, and with Halloween decorating season in full swing, I was inspired to use the words BOO, EEK, AH, and POISON. 

Other words that came to mind were R.I.P., TRICK OR TREAT, and ROARRR. With a few more frames, I'll most likely expand this wall art with those. ♥

Can you think of any other sayings you're going to put in your frames?

frames from Hobby Lobby | glitter spiders and skull from Walmart

a funky bunch of mustached pumpkins

It's October!! ...the month of the pumpkin. For you all today, I have eight of them. Eight that make up what I'm calling A FUNKY BUNCH OF MUSTACHED PUMPKINS!

This was a project I had floating around in my brain since four weeks ago. Yep - an idea that struck me while I was in Cali at the mambi office. When I returned home from the trip, I bought pumpkins at the first sign of them in stores.  Those albino ghost-pumpkins were perfect.

I had a vision of painting them all-white to make the black mustaches POP - and since I had the neon paint from this project, decided to do the tops neon pink and yellow too. 

This me & my BIG ideas sheet of mustache stickers can be found at Hobby Lobby, and make this project so fun and kid-friendly. Read the steps I took to create this funky bunch on the mambi blog.

I laughed harder an harder with each mustache I stuck. 

Once I took a look at the whole bunch, I almost lost it. Haa haa!

Each mustache gives its pumpkin its own personality. Do you have a favorite?

Here's where the funky bunch resides now, and will until they start to melt from the inside-out:

They're chilling on the balcony, right outside the sliding doors from where I work. Every time they catch my eye, I laugh to myself. That makes for a worth-while project in my book.

Happy first day of Pumpkin Month! ♥ ♥ ♥

See past years' painted pumpkins here, here, and here.

NEON PET PORTRAITS

The run down of this project can be found in this post from A Beautiful Mess, and when I saw it on there a few weeks ago, I knew I had to make a portrait each of my kitty boops.  I followed the directions exactly, and 15 minutes later, I had two neon pet portraits:

Alejandro:

Alejandro, oh, Alejandro. To describe this guy's devotion to me would take and awful lot of words that just wouldn't do it justice. This little boy loves me. He's my sidekick, my shadow, my little groupie, the greatest fan of my life. I usually fall asleep to his cuddles, and wake up to his snuggles. He still loves the sticky cellophane balls I roll up and toss after turning something through my stickermaker machine. He talks to me, tells me things. His favorite 'spots' are on his window with the breeze in his face, or out in the backyard under the bush. He loves shrimp, chicken liver, soft cheeses, and turkey cold cuts. He is my boy, and boy, do I love him so.

Carmen:

Carmen is my baby girl, and the sweetest sweetums if ever there was a sweetie-pie sweet monkey! She is our family's comic relief, often pretending to be 'Rose' from Titanic or watching Meerkat Manor on TV from her cardboard box. Lately, I've been calling her a 'meatball hero' because she's round and heavy like one. This summer has also allowed us to see her as Carmen Sandiego, RESCUE RANGER...and whenever we drop something or shout or get hurt and yell "ouch!!", she darts from where ever she is to check and see if everything is okay. It's pretty hilarious, and one of the thousands of reasons why we love her. Her favorite 'spots' are with her face in her food dish, or in the kitchen near her food dish, waitin for food. She'd be happy just eating dry food, and loves her Temptations treats!

Those are some currents about my babies, and some art I made of them. I hope to find a place for these pop art portraits in the new Texas apartment. I guess I'll see when I get there.

♥ ♥ ♥
Happy Tuesday!

funny gag crowns for a retirement dinner

There's very little I feel I can't whip up with laminated printouts and some hot glue.  Read on...

My Aunt Laura didn't want a big party in honor of her retirement from the New York City Department of Education which she served dutifully and laboriously for the past 27 years, so her closest fam&friends took her out to dinner. 

...and to distinguish this dinner from, let's say, a regular birthday dinner, or a plain ol' gathering with friends -- there were crowns...funny gag retirement crowns...and each one of us wore one. 

The crowns drew attention to the occasion - which I find important - if it is, in fact, an occasion.  27 years!  27 YEARS! ...that deserves a Noble Peace Prize if you ask me, but gag crowns had to do.

We laughed, we ate, we girl-talked, we reminisced, we congratulated...and the crowns never left our heads.

I'm still smiling about it.

Happy Retirement, Aunt Laura! Much deserved! ♥ Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Document Life Workshop | Do/Redo a Past Challenge

Have you ever opened a gift wrapped in beautiful wrapping paper?  So beautiful, that after you open the present, you were genuinely conerned about what to do with the supposedly "disgarded" wrap?

Here's an after-Christmas project you and loved ones can complete that answers the question of what to do with treaured ripped up wrapping paper.

For today's challenge of Document Life Workshop, we were asked to DO/REDO A PAST CHALLENGE. The challenge that I decide to do was from three weeks ago: Use Gift Wrap because gift wrap + favorite photos from the year = a great way to document life.

Supplies:
    - gift wrap
    - printed photos
    - studio calico labels
    - laminating machine
    - fishing line (<--the best for hanging anything)
    - hot glue

I love how these photo-ornamanets came out.  I imagine they'd be a great day-after-Christmas project to do with the kids: print out your favorite photos from the day before and relive fun memories over leftovers and crafts.  Or, like I did, take some favorite captured moments of the almost-over year.

After a few years of this Christmas project traditions, imagine how filled with memories your Christmas tree will be!

Below are the few I did hang on the tree.  They blend in nicely with the other ornaments.

As you can see, I didn't spend too much time making it look like a perfected Pinterest production. This is about documenting life, people...about getting your craft on with materials at your disposal and recording happy memories in the process.  I cut simple shapes out of the wrapping paper: sloppy stars, quick lop-sided squares, and elementary school paper fans to go with the photos.

Documenting life is all about getting it done.  Your great grandchildren will cherish in the photos and your telling of the stories that go with them, not so much how great you cut that gift wrap. ;)

Have fun! Craft on!

Signing out,

sharpies + Easter eggs

Today is Good Friday for all who celebrate, and I'm coming to you today with my 'goods' from last night's egg decorating extravaganza.  My cousin, Claudia is with us for the Easter weekend, and when she comes, we get crafty.

Okay, people, I thought I had hit the DIY jackpot!  I had the idea to Mister Huey's mist a hardboiled egg, and sort of monogram them with a colorful marbled-misty look.  Why hadn't anyone pinned this!, I thought.  It's easy. It's fun. It'll be so pretty.  All sounded great...in theory.

Sadly, the idea flopped:

The mist did not stick properly. It was wet and all over the place.  Even with dry-time, it didn't adhere to the shell.  Yeah.  So that's why nobody pinned it.

On to Plan B! ...

...and some interesting creations were made...  

You know me and my polka dots. ;)

When you're a cat-mama, I instagrammed, you want to drawn your babies everywhere.

Claude did an awesome job of springin' up her egg and her nails.

I kept looking for ways I could use the letter stickers.
This thing: ~ reminded me of eyebrows. 

...and an asterisk* for a flower in her hair

This 'dietician' egg was my mom's bright idea. (deep sigh)
My sister is studying to be a dietician and was literally upstairs locked in her room studying, so to honor her and 'include' her we made a dietician egg:
one that would say, "STOP! Eggs are high in cholesterol."

My mom insisted we sign it "-Dietician".

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Then, of course, you have your
Pop Culture easter eggs:

Taylor Swift and 1D eggs.  Carefully and beautiful sharpied by the Claude-myster.

AND...

...last, but not least,
my personal favorite egg of the night...

I used the two cracks as eye-sockets.

Season III Finale Sunday. OMG. OMG.

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I have to say that these are prob not the BEST Easter eggies I've ever made, but still it was a lot of fun.  Also, the scene reminded me of back in mid-October when Claude was over and we were doing the same thing in the same spot, but with acrylic paint and pumpkins.

In fact, the whole thing was highly reminiscent of pumpkin painting.  Isn't that funny? It seems every 6 months we humans need to habitually play with our food.  I love that.

Have a happy Friday, readers & peepers!

I'm doing March's edition of 'Day in the Life' today.
Come back soom to see how that pans out in the near future.

See past Easter egg creations here(2011) and here(2010).