Recipe Organization

Are you like me and have the following:

• many many recipes that you've printed out from online?
• magazines that have a recipe that you'd hoped to try someday?
• recipe books that you use for only 3 recipes?

Does your stash of recipes start to look like this :

Then I bet you'll be as excited as I was to turn my cluttery recipe stash into this!


I've tried the recipe box and it just wasn't cutting it.  It was getting too messy and didn't fit everything I had!! I got the recipe binder idea from my wonderful sister in law.  We would be cooking something and she'd whip it out and flip right to what she wanted to find.  I loved it.  Although, hers could use an upgrade, and I have made it my goal to help her with that. ;)

Let's get started! What do you need?

**a 1 1/2-inch binder that has page inserts on the cover (ok, this is not essential, but then how could you insert the cute printable??)

**page dividers  Any will work, but you can also try some that have pockets in them.  I loved these Avery Style Edge dividers and it comes with 8.  Here, I put my "breakfast" insert into a page protector and then taped the divider to the back of the page protector. I did this because if you use the holes...you won't be able to see the tab anymore, because of using page protectors.
**page protectors (sure you could 3 hole punch, but this will keep the splatters off
**PRINT whichever printables suit you for your binder.  A HUGE shout out to my friend Brittney from Gettin' Scrappy With Britt.  She designed the CUTEST inserts for your book! Email me at geetaraub@yahoo.com and I'll be happy to send you whichever ones you need.  There is also one for Pasta/Pizza that is not shown here:

I only had EIGHT tabs because I really don't have a ton of recipes.  So I used : Appetizers, Bread, Breakfast, Dessert, Soup/Salads, Veggie/Sides, Meatless and I used the BEEF page for all my MEAT recipes.  Now, my sister in law has SO many recipes so she likes her meat categories broken down.  It also gets hard for them all to fit into one binder....so here are her two binders. ;) There are similar tabs that are larger, so there are 5 in a pack. So I put 5 in each binder


When you are organizing your recipes, to save space, you might want to bunch smaller recipes together...either re-typing them to put several on a page
OR you can use the page protectors with pockets to insert just half a sheet or a recipe card:

 Recipe Card Pockets - 

12 pages with 2 pockets each page for $3.95 on Amazon

1 page with 3 pockets for $.50 each found here :  http://www.engravedgiftcollection.com/catalog/P-536B.html
 

Flower Canvas

I will start by admitting this was not my idea.  Mostly everything I do these days is from Pinterest, and this project is no different. I found this idea here : flower canvas .  I was very excited because Hobby Lobby has a 2-pack of 16X20 canvases for only $7.99.  So this project costed me $4.00 plus a few sheets of scrapbook paper. 
My guest bathroom has had empty walls ever since we moved in.  I knew I wanted to put this in there, so I chose colors to match.  If you look at the post where I got the idea...she painted the canvas first. I chose not to because I liked the white background.  She also shows a good demonstration on how she cut out the flower petals, so check it out. SUPER EASY!  I used Mod Podge to glue down each petal. Using a sponge brush I covered the ENTIRE leaf on the back and when I placed it on, I used a paper towel to rub over the top, making sure every corner was flat on the canvas.  This is the part that takes the longest. The petals that are on the edge just need to be wrapped around the edge of the canvas.

Take care with each petal, making sure it is secure on the canvas. Once you do this with all of the petals, the mod podge needs to be COMPLETELY dry before going over the top of the whole thing, otherwise the paper will start to bubble up.  I would suggest waiting an hour, just to be sure.  Once that time has passed, you can use your sponge brush to go over the entire canvas to give it a more professional finish. 

Stuffed Animals

 Does your child love stuffed animals as much as mine does?  She can never get enough and they were cluttering up her room.  I've seen many cute ways to store stuffed animals, but I decided to go with the wall hanging planters. 

 Her room is pretty small, so I wanted to utilize her wall space.  I got these planters last year, so I can't remember how much they were! You can find them anywhere...home depot, lowes, walmart...or maybe you can be on the hunt in thrift stores or garage sales.  They were black and I spray painted them white to match her room.

 They were the perfect solution for storing the stuffed animals and they also look pretty cute on the wall, so it serves as room decor as well!

Menu Board

I always struggle with "What To Make For Dinner?!!!" and I found a solution!  I can not take credit for this beautiful idea because I first saw a menu board on Pinterest.  But I knew right away that I had to make one of my own and I'll tell you why : 

1. It gives me a weekly layout...which is great because I usually grocery shop weekly
2. The ingredients are on the back of each card, so when I've chosen my meals for the week, all I have to do is turn the card over for a shopping list
3. When the week is over, I can discard the meal cards into "Tasted Good" so I know those have been used recently and when I go to choose new meals I can grab from "Cook Me".  It will help me rotate what we eat without me even having to think about it!  And you can add and throw away meal cards as you please!
4. It sure is darn cute!
5. TOTAL COST was only $6.50 because I already had the frame lying around the house, already had the cardstock and the ribbon was on sale at Hobby Lobby. 

 Want to make your own?? SO cheap and easy! Here are the steps:

1. Gather your supplies
1. 11X14 picture frame ($3 or less walmart/dollar store)
2. 3-4 pieces of 12X12 scrapbook paper ($.59/each)
3. 2-3 pages 8 1/2 X 11 cardstock for meal cards ($.50/each?)
4. 7 clothespins (pack of 24 is $3.47)
5. 2 crayon boxes (mine are 24 ct, but 12 ct would work) ($.50-1.50/each)
6. Embellishments like ribbon, brads (optional)
7. Hot glue gun
2. Take the glass out of the frame and take out the back board.  Arrange your scrapbook paper however you like and glue it on the board
3. Turn the crayon boxes horizontal and cut out one side of the box.  Glue the ends together to keep the box from falling apart.  Cut out scrapbook paper to fit and cover the box
4. Glue scrapbook paper to your clothespins.  I used mod podge and also covered the top with mod podge...kind of made them look more like they came that way. ;) Then I wrote the days of the week with a fine tip sharpee
5. Before you glue the boxes and clothespins on, you might want to arrange it all with your meal cards to make sure everything is spaced correctly:

MEAL CARDS:

1. Open a Word document and set the page layout to "2 columns" with .5 margins on all sides.  
2. Type in the names all the meals you can think of that you make and that you'd be happy to make again. Include a couple that say EAT OUT, LEFTOVERS, SOMETHING NEW (in case you might want to try a new recipe that week) or I even put FROM THE FREEZER as one because I'll sometimes have a frozen meal from costco or something.  You should be able to fit 6 in each column, depending on your size and font
3. If you liked my font, it's called Pea So Lovely, which you can download for free and my font sizes were anywhere from 30-43, depending on how long of a word.  The font for my box titles is Girls Are Weird, also downloadable for free. (tasted great was size 45 and cook me was size 60)
4.  Once you have all your cards printed on cardstock and cut out, you need to write on the back of each one, the main ingredients and amounts...you do not have to write the entire recipe!  
5. You can make your own printout of "What's For Dinner!" or you can right click on mine and save it to your computer.  (Thanks to my friend, Brittney!)
6. Now you are ready to arrange everything on your board and then you can glue on your boxes and your clothespins with the hot glue gun!
7. As far as hanging it, I would suggest to hang it with a nail or two on your wall, BUT I have NO wall space in my kitchen area, so I bought a $2.99 over the door wreath hanger and I put a thick ribbon through the hanger on the back of the frame, tied a TIGHT knot at the top then added a bow and it hangs there nicely for me.  I don't like the idea of it bouncing around every time the door opens, so I am on the hunt for some kind of adhesive to help hold it there.