Recipe Book

As part of my sister's wedding gift, I put together a book of recipes from my mom, my grandma, and some of our favorites.  This was an excellent time for me to do some recipe reorganization of my own as well.

I used the (free!) templates from Prudent Baby for the cover and spine.  I went with yellow because we're a family of yellow-lovers but there are lots of great colors.

I thought long and hard about the divider issue.  First I decided my categories would be: appetizers, beverages, sauces, breads, breakfast, vegetables, soups, entrees, and desserts.  The next problem was dividers.  Since I wanted to put my recipes in clear pastic covers, I needed dividers that would be longer than the sheet protectors.  For some odd reason, these are nearly impossible to find.  I'm thinking about patenting my own and becoming a bazillionaire.  I found dividers with the tab on top here but they weren't very cute and they were $4 for 5 dividers and I needed 18 (9 categories for each of our books) and that seemed like an exorbitant amount.  So, I made my own.

I bought these cute file folders at Target- 12 folders for $5 then cut them along the fold.  I could only use the half with tabs that stuck out so I did have to buy 2 packs, but now I have lots of cute cardstock to use for cards and such.

I printed my labels and glued them onto the tabs.  At this point there is an optional step of spilling half a bottle of Rubber Cement on your carpet.  Looking back, I would probably skip this step next time, but I'll leave that decision up to you.  (If you do go with this option, mix 2 cups of water with a tablespoon of vinegar and a tablespoon of dish soap then scrub your little heart out and it will eventually come out.)

Since my tabs would get a lot of use I used contact paper to strengthen them.  I just cut a little piece, folded it over and cut off the excess.  Nice and sturdy.

Then I punched holes in the edges and voila! I had dividers.

This new recipe book will help with some of my recipe resolutions.
1. No more recipe book filled weird and unknown recipes.  In the past I've gone nuts cutting out recipes, printing recipes, etc.  This book is only for the winners.  I'll keep a "to try" folder but not transfer anything over until it makes the cut.  This way I won't be searching through a never-ending book of recipes I never use.
2. No more food spattered on the computer.  Once I've tried a recipe and it's a winner, I'm going to print it and stick it in the book.  This will save me time searching through my looooong list of bookmarks and save my precious computer.