family favorites recipe book

We held our "family favorites recipe book" project class last night. I loved seeing all the different papers everyone chose for their pages and borders.

What is a Family Favorites Recipe Book?
It's a place to organize and store your family favorite recipes--the ones you use often. I'm loving how simple it is to go to one book instead of trying to remember if a certain recipe is in my "favorites" file or one of many recipe books in my pantry.

How do I get started? 
 
SUPPLY LIST:

• family favorite recipes
• 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" album
• 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" sheet protectors
• 8 1/2" x 11" non-textured white cardstock
• 7-8 sheets patterned paper
• paper trimmer
• adhesive
• 1" circle punch
  

Print or see a more detailed supply list.

Albums are available online at ShopWeR. (I hate to say it, but this company's customer service is awful, so if you can find an album somewhere else, do it!)

What's next?
Step 1: Gather your family favorite recipes. Download the page template and type in your own recipes by clicking on the boxes. If your title or recipe doesn't fit, make your font smaller. You can choose a template that will allow you to add photos or leave them out.
page template with photos
page template without photos

Step 2: Remove the center line from your typed recipe pages and print. (Our experience was that printers feed pages very differently, so removing the center line allows you to trim down the middle of the page without small discrepancies being noticeable.) Trim recipe pages in half.

Step 3: Download and personalize your title page with your own name and your table of content page with your own categories by clicking on my text. A box will appear so you can type your own information. Print the title page/table of contents page.
Title page and TOC template

Step 4: Assemble your recipe book.

Trim the title block about 1/4" from the border and adhered it to patterned paper.

Choose one pattern for each of your categories in the table of contents. Punch a 1" circle and adhere right over the circle on the template.

Trim 3/4" strips from each of your patterned papers and adhere to the edge of each page according to which category it fits into. Soups have this pattern:

Salads have my favorite pattern--the apples:

Main dishes have the chicken pattern:

I had to work with this last pattern because there are spaces between the rows of chickens. I didn't want half my pages to have chicken bums :), so I did some selective trimming.

Step 5: Add recipe pages to sheet protectors. If you plan to add photos to your book, your recipes will be on the right side of a two-page spread. If you are omitting photos, you will insert a recipe on each side of the two-page layout.

Step 6: Enjoy being organized and showing off your family favorites cookbook!

I loved having the Young Women join us for this project. We have several using it as a YW value project. This is the last project Daria Roberts has to do to receive her Young Women recognition. That's awesome! I think each of the girls have done most or all of the typing for their own (and their mother's) books. :)

Be sure to show me your finished pages when they're completed, I want to see!

Tip: I trimmed the rest of my patterned paper into 3/4" strips for when I want to add more recipes later. I keep them and my extra cardstock together in a "recipe book project file" in my craft area.