Joyful Abode

After everyone’s suggestions on what to do with bottom round steaks, we decided to make fajitas. It was a much better use of the meat than the ERROR steak. I cut the steaks into strips, then browned them in a pan with a bit of olive oil. After that, I added some broth, soy sauce, lime juice, and seasoned salt and cooked it for a while.

Meanwhile, I sliced some onions and bell peppers, and sauteed them in a pan until they were tender. We set up this buffet of fajita fixin’s on the table and went to town. (Sour cream was present too!)

They were great! The meat was much more tender, having cooked for a while in a pot of liquid. And the guy thanked me for making fajitas, since he never orders them in restaurants because they’re too expensive. I think this was his first fajita experience, and he enjoyed it.

We had some leftover peppers and onions, so the next day I made breakfast burritos (tortilla, scrambled eggs, cheese, peppers and onions, and Frank’s hot sauce). It was a great way to use the leftover vegetables!

I love Autumn, October, and Halloween. So in honor of these three times of year, I am hosting a Joyful Abode Halloween Coloring Contest.

The winner will receive a lucky (or is it unlucky) $13.13 gift code for Joyful Abode!

Currently, the shop is full of lovely aprons, and soon we’ll be adding some supplies for sewing-type folks!

So… are you ready?

Step 1: Save the coloring page to your hard drive. Please click here to download the large version.

Step 2: Color it. You can print it, color it with crayons, markers, pastels, or paints, and scan it back in if you’d like. Or you can use a Photoshop-esque program to color it digitally.

Step 3: Email it to me at emily at joyfulabode dot com (please in .jpg or .gif format). Feel free to include a little blurb about yourself or about how you colored your picture. I’ll include it in the description when I post the entries.

Step 4 (really a step for me, not for you): I put every entry into the flickr album for the contest (with your blurb if you wrote one).

Step 5: Tell your friends to vote on your entry by commenting on flickr with their choice. Remind them that only one vote will count per voter!

Step 6: Wait until the winner is announced on Monday, October 29th!

I can’t wait to see the creative ways you color your pictures!

PS: I’ll accept submissions until the contest is over, but the sooner you submit your entry, the more time you have to garner votes for your picture. Only one entry per person, please!

We’re moving again. We’ve actually been moving all week. But this weekend will be the final haul. I updated the “About” page to reflect this new development.

So goodbye little row house, or patio house, or whatever it is you like to be called. We’ve enjoyed our two months here.

(ooh a sneak peak of my quilt)

More pictures in my flickr.

We’re looking forward to at least 6 months in our new three - bedroom - house - with - a - bigger - craft - room - that - the - husband - prefers - to - call - the - office.

See you on Monday, blog world! I’ll come back with lots of Halloween goodies for you. I bet you can’t even guess what.

We bought this Whirlpool Duet Sport washing machine and dryer set from Lowe’s. It was delivered to our new house yesterday, and soon we’ll be washing clothes, fabric, and towels with SUPER efficiency! I’m most excited about the quick drying time. Since the washer spins out so much of the water, it takes much less time to dry the clothes. The dryer also senses when the clothes are dry, and it stops so it doesn’t waste energy.

Here’s my vision of how happy our clothes will be, dancing and swimming in the high efficiency waters of the whirlpool washer.

I wrote about my first quilt. Since then, I have finished the top and machine-quilted the whole quilt top-batting-backing sandwich (I should’ve used a walking foot on my machine to make it a bit easier, but it turned out fine). I bound the edges in my handmade bias tape, which was a good choice.

Now for the finishing touches… some embroidery I decided on at the last minute. Four embroidered hearts.

This salad was so simple to make, and the ginger-soy dressing topped it off with great flavor.

While the chicken was browning in a pan, I got the rest of the salad things ready. Mandarin orange slices, chow mien noodles, and the (homemade) ginger-soy dressing.

The dressing was simple, and I didn’t really measure much. I combined olive oil with soy sauce and lemon juice, then whisked in garlic, ginger, mustard, pepper, and honey. I tasted it along the way and adjusted as needed.

Delicious!

I love Real Simple magazine. Really. It’s always filled with tips for how to declutter or better organize your home. It has home decor tips and lots of pretty pictures. BUT it’s filled with advertisements. So much so that it’s difficult to find an article, even if you know what page it’s on (since the ads don’t have page numbers on them).

Anyway, I taught my latest Real Simple magazine a lesson. Before I even started to read the magazine, I pulled out all of the subscription inserts (hello! I’m already a subscriber) and every single page that had an advertisement on both sides. I obviously left in the pages that had an article on one side.

Witness the aftermath:

Easy clutter control, indeed! I was able to read through my magazine without being bombarded with tens of pages of ads all in a row between articles… much nicer.

However, the magazine is pretty slim without all of the padding.

I recently subscribed to Better Homes and Gardens magazine. It feels like such an old-lady thing to do, but I’ve been reading old issues at work during lunch, and there are some great ideas in there! Delicious recipes, unique decorating ideas (no, really!), and really good articles. I may just let my Real Simple subscription expire this year. Goodbye!

I’ve been reading a bit about chicken scratch embroidery since finding a couple of aprons that are embellished with it. Chickenscratch is also called Snowflake Embroidery, Amish Embroidery, Depression Lace, or Gingham Lace and refers to a cross-stitch-like embroidered pattern done over gingham fabric. It can be very simple (the stitches will look like asterisks or stars) or more complex.

This apron, called Talia, is now at Joyful Abode @ Etsy, listed under Vintage Aprons of course (Vintage Half Aprons). I think the work done on this one is just gorgeous.

Bottom hem:

Waistband:

Pocket:

All of Lovely Talia:

A long time ago, I made a log cabin quilted wall hanging under the guidance of my mother. Really though, I made the top, and then lost interest. My mother finished by quilting and binding it, and that was the end of my quilting.

Recently though, I’ve been inspired by numerous blogs full of gorgeous quilt. I decided to attempt a simple checkerboard pattern quilt. It’s very small, because I didn’t want to experiment on a large scale.

I think it’s coming along nicely so far.

This is Sara. She’s ruffly and flowery and will make you feel perky instantly.

Shop for more vintage aprons at Joyful Abode @ Etsy. Aprons make great teacher gifts, hostess gifts, housewarming presents, and of course presents for yourself.