The new blog is live!!

Time for the big blog reveal!! As I said in my previous post, I have made the decision to stop blogging on My Own Road and team up with my sister-in-law, Shannon, to start a new blog (more details in my post if you have any questions.) Now that the blog design is done, I can finally give you more details!

The new blog is called eat. sleep. MAKE., and it's a collaborative creative effort between Shannon and I to bring you even more great projects and tutorials. We had the awesome privilege to work with Melisa of Pie in the Sky to design our new blog for us, and we are SO thrilled with how it turned out!

Shannon and I have both been in love with coral and gray, as well as the southwestern trend that's been going on for awhile, and Melisa did an amazing job combining both of our styles and tastes to create a gorgeous design that fits both of us perfectly.

On top of having a brand new blog and design, we also have active Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter accounts so you can follow us and stay connected with everything going on with eat. sleep. MAKE. I hope you'll come follow us at eatsleepmake.com because we just might have an amazing giveaway coming up soon for all of our followers full of some really cool stuff we both made. You don't want to miss it!

And check it out, we even have sweet new buttons now:


<a border="0" href="http://www.eatsleepmake.com" target="_blank"><img_proxy src="http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/rr312/svenanzio/Button1-5.jpg" /></a>

<a border="0" href="http://www.eatsleepmake.com" target="_blank"><img_proxy src="http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/rr312/svenanzio/Button3-4.jpg" /></a>
If you want  to share the love, please feel free to copy and paste the html code in the box below the image to your blog!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I won't be posting on My Own Road anymore, but it will stay open so that you can still enjoy my past posts and tutorials. I will be posting updates here for a short while to let you know what we're up to on eat. sleep. MAKE just in case you haven't made the official transition to follow us there yet.

Thank you all SO much for supporting My Own Road for the past 2 1/2 years! I have made a lot of new friends and really grown as a blogger and a person. I hope you'll come follow Shannon and I on eat. sleep. MAKE. and check out all the great new stuff we have for you!

BIG News!!

 I've been hinting around about my big news, and I can finally let the cat out of the bag! You may remember how I've talked about my sister-in-law, Shannon, here on my blog. She's the one who taught me how to sew, and she's also personally responsible for half of my wardrobe (some of the clothes she gave me I posted about here and here). She has amazing fashion sense and mad skills in home decoration, which I am sadly lacking in. On top of all that, I was also lucky enough to have her guest post back in June of 2011 for my Button Down Rehab series when she shared her tutorial for how to make a Pillow Monster.

We've been talking for awhile now about how much fun it'd be to start a blog together, so we did! I can't go into too much detail just yet (or even reveal the name!) because the final touches are being added as we speak, but I'll make sure to give you the full reveal as soon as I can! Until then, I'll reveal our main photo we took for the front page of the new blog. Please disregard my horrible posing. I'm working on it ;)

I'm sure you've noticed that things have been slow lately, but it's because Shannon and I have been working our butts off for the past few months on new and unique content. So while I've been continuing to write here on My Own Road, I've also been working overtime on a ton of new projects and recipes that I can't wait to share with you guys! Thing I'm most excited about is that together, Shannon and I will be able to offer you SO much more content since we'll be blogging together. And it won't be just sewing and kids stuff, our new blog will be focused on sharing everything we love from parties to fashion, home decoration, and DIY's.

Now...

What can you expect on the new blog? is an even better version of what this blog has become. Shannon's fashion sense, home decor tips and design along with my craft background and kid-centered projects means that we're going to be able to offer a lot more diversity and projects to our readers. You can expect to see a lot more DIY projects each week, along with plenty of recipes, kid stuff, crafts, and tips for how to make the most of your wardrobe. 

What does that mean for My Own Road? It was an extremely hard decision to make, but I ultimately decided to stop writing on My Own Road so that I can focus solely on the new blog. I have had SUCH a great time blogging on My Own Road for the past 2 1/2 years and learned so much in the process so this decision feels a bit like giving up a child, but it's time for me to start a new chapter in my life.

The primary reason why I decided to start a new blog with Shannon is because I wanted to have more time to spend with my family instead of feeling the constant pressure to blog and do projects all the time. I love to create, but coupled with 2 kids and a full-time job, it started to become more of a chore than a creative outlet. Around March, I began to really feel burned out and almost gave up this blog altogether. Shannon and I talked about it, and starting a new blog together became the perfect way for me to continue expressing myself creatively while still having plenty of time for my family because ultimately, they are what really matters.


While I'll no longer be posting new content on My Own Road, it will stay open infinitely so that you can still enjoy my past projects and access my tutorials and freebies. For awhile, I'll also be posting some updates and pictures here of what we're sharing over at the new blog in case you haven't yet made the transition yet to follow us there.

I REALLY hope you'll all stick with me when I make the official transition to the new blog. I've loved getting to know each and every one of you, and Shannon and I look forward to being able to offer even bigger and better (and more!) things with you on our new blog.

Lounging around

We're kicking back some and relaxing over here :) I'm taking advantage of my unemployment (which hopefully won't be much longer) and spending as much time as I can with my kids. There have been many trips to the playground, parks, and shopping trips to the mall. I'm loving it. Well, most of it. Seriously, how do all of you stay-at-home moms do it everyday?? I love my kids more than anything, but sometimes when they both throw simultaneous tantrums, I forget their cuteness and want to hand them over to the daycare for a couple hours so I can have some peace and quiet, or at least go to the bathroom by myself.

Connor is such a mama's boy, which I LOVE, but I'm not so much a fan of how he has to follow me absolutely everywhere. A girl just needs to go to the bathroom by herself sometimes, you know? I'm sure we'll laugh about it someday, but he's just so clingy lately. I'm sure a lot of it is related to the fact that he's 18 months, but mama's, please tell me that he won't always scream bloody murder when I walk into the other room? I don't remember my 3-year-old ever being this clingy. I keep telling myself to enjoy it while I can, which I do for the most part, but it's really difficult for others to take care of him when he's having a meltdown.

But then I snap a picture of him like the one above where he's lounging on the couch with his pants unbuttoned, eating chips and watching TV, and all of those tantrums melt away in my mind and I see my sweet little snuggly boy. Who am I kidding? I love that he's a mama's boy.

Oh and my big news that I've been hinting around about will be announced next Monday :) I can't wait to share what I've been up to!

Baked Beer Brats

To me, summer means grilling, grilling, and more grilling! There's nothing we love more about summer than spending some time outside playing with the kids while grilling out. My husband Patrick is truly the Burger Master, and we have many friends who can attest to that fact.

While try to grill as much as we can, but the summer heat can become pretty unbearable at times, and that means stepping foot outdoors is out of the question. On those days when we still want traditional summer food, we turn to my husband's recipe for beer brats that can be made in the oven. He first made these for me when we were dating, and I've been addicted ever since. They get really juicy on the inside from cooking in the beer and seasoning, and they have just the right amount of snap when you bite into them.

If I got to eat these beer brats all the time, I wouldn't even miss the grill. Plus, this recipe just involves throwing ingredients into a pan and putting it into the oven. It doesn't get any easier than that.

Ingredients: 1 bottle of beer (I prefer lagers for this recipe), 2 tablespoons minced garlic, 1 tablespoon italian seasoning, 2 tablespoons olive oil

Instructions: Combine all ingredients in a glass pan and cook at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, then flip brats over and cook for another 20 minutes.

Sprinkle with your favorite toppings and enjoy! My toppings of choice are ketchup and red onion :) I'm sure this one will quickly become a summer favorite of yours too!

Check out my sidebar to see where I link up each week!

I'm a scrapbooking failure.

I'm someone who can't get enough of different creative mediums. I've dabbled in a ton of different things: crocheting, painting, drawing, sewing, knitting...the list goes on and on. The problem with that is, I'll go on a kick where I will get engrossed in something, only to get bored with it a few months later. This usually means I end up with a heap of supplies that I no longer use, and half-done projects that need some major improvements.

Case in point: scrapbooking.

I would really love to tell you that I'm a fantastic scrapbooker. I love all the cute little dimensional stickers you can get to embellish your pages, and maybe that's the reason I first got interested in scrapbooking. I mean, it's real-life stuff in tiny form! Maybe that would explain why I like babies so much too?

From all my blog stalking, I've seen so many cute layouts that people put together to catalog important events like graduation, the birth of their children, etc. And, now that I have a Silhouette, I have no excuse right? The only problem is, I suck at scrapbooking. I mean, super hero suck at it.

Need proof? I'm glad you asked.

I have a scrapbook I started in high school. At the time, I thought I made a pretty cool scrapbook. Looking back, I wonder "what the heck was I thinking??" (On the positive side, if you were questioning your scrapbooking abilities, one look at my old scrapbook will make you feel like a pro!)

1. The cover of the scrapbook. What was I thinking with this? Is that a fork with flowers on it?
2. Magazine pages as backgrounds. Apparently a snowman without a nose qualifies as an acceptable winter background. I can hear scrapbookers everywhere screaming in agony. 
3. Sticky labels as an embellishment. The only thing labels should be used for is TO LABEL THINGS. Not as a decoration.
4. Foil, really? This may be the best page in the book. I remember being really proud of this one when I finished it. Now I just wonder why I decided foil would make a good decoration.

I am a disgrace to scrapbookers everywhere. The thing is, it's not like I didn't have materials to work with! I have dimensional stickers, letters, and even scrapbook paper that doesn't come out of a magazine. And I still have them.

Sigh. I have finally accepted the fact that I will never be a good scrapbooker. I guess that's a major step in the right direction. It's probably a good thing that I've accepted that fact because I don't think the craft world is ready for more scrapbooks full of sticky labels and foil.

Spongebob Squarepants dress

A friend of mine (the one I made the Hospital Survival Kit for last year) recently asked me to make a dress for her daughter for her first birthday. She loves Spongebob Squarepants, so of course the party had to be Spongebob-themed and you can't have a Spongebob party without the proper attire. She wanted a girly version of Spongebob's outfit, so I immediately thought of Ashley's tutorial on how to turn a onesie into a bubble dress on Make It and Love It. I liked the idea of using a onesie rather than a regular t-shirt because they're longer and also because I could still incorporate the general idea of Spongebob's outfit but make it girly by adding a gathered bottom and sparkly tie.

I used fabric paint with glitter in it for the tie (not sure if you can see the glitter well in the picture above, but it's there!) and used freezer paper to paint it on the shirt in the shape of a tie.

I also made a simple bow hair clip with some red ribbon that I had.

How cute is she??

Check out my sidebar to see where I link up each week!

Even princesses need ice cream

My MIL found a couple of Disney princess dresses at a garage sale recently, and Haley got her hands on one and immediately insisted on wearing it and spinning around the living room. She loved it so much that she refused to take it off during a trip to get ice cream recently. How often do you get to wear a big, puffy princess dress out in public?

So that's what we did.

I think we found a new favorite ice cream spot. I tried their "Bittersweet Symphony," which is a heavenly mixture of coffee ice cream with bittersweet ribbons of chocolate running through it. We've been back to get ice cream twice now, and I can't bring myself to try anything else.

 

Haley sat down intermittently for bites of ice cream, but she mostly enjoyed curtsying to passerby's who complimented her on her dress. This little princess had very refined manners. Except for the drips of ice cream that inevitably found their way onto her dress. Her lady in waiting (i.e. me) was called several times to make sure the little princess's dress was properly wiped clean.

Good thing Connor was on hand to "help" finish off the rest of the ice cream. I didn't need any help with mine :)

Bowls were emptied and Princess Haley was happy. I sense more trips to get ice cream in our near future, probably in a Rapunzel dress next time.