This post is part of a series – “31 days of Pinterest: Pinned to Done” You can read all the posts in this series here. And to make sure you don’t miss anything you can sign up to have every post sent to your email, follow me on facebook, or subscribe in your reader.
Today’s project was inspired by this post by Christa over at Brown Sugar Toast. She published that post in January and I have been debating/wanting to do this project since then.
Love her cute little recipe book, but even more I loved (and needed!) the organization that she did with her recipes. Go check hers out, I’ll be right here when you get back…
So this is where I was… Papers/recipes piled in my cookbook stand and more in other places.
I wrestled with this project. Not in actually doing it, but deciding HOW and IF I should do it. Our world is becoming more and more based on technology (which I love!) and I debated procrastinated somehow trying to have all my recipes in a digital format instead of paper. I mean, goodness there is the wonderful Pinterest! Couldn’t I organize all my recipes in there?? The problem is I go on pinning sprees (must be when I am hungry at night) and pin every recipe I see. Then my board is bulging with hundreds of recipes – some I have tried, some I never have tried – and I can’t find the ones I am looking for. When it comes time to make Traci’s Taco Soup or Laine’s Pumpkin Cream Cheese muffins (recipes online), I have to find the pin on my board, go to the blog post, then drag my laptop into the kitchen and hope I don’t spill food on it while I am trying to follow the recipe. Or print the recipe (but then where to put it?) I wondered if I had a tablet and if there was an app that would organize things and there may be. (Chime in the comments if you use a great app to organize your recipes.)
But then what about the recipes that aren’t online? The one that your friend gives you written out cause you asked for her recipe, the recipe card that I picked up at the grocery store that our family loves, the secret family recipe that doesn’t even exist online. How do I organize all of these??
So for now, I am going old school. Good ole paper, notebook, and printed out recipes. I will still use Pinterest for recipes, but it will be to store recipes I want to try. Then when I have tried a recipe and our family loves it, I will print it and add it to my family recipe book, and move the pin to a “Recipes we Love” board so I still have the link just in case I want to share it with you 
I picked up a note book and 2 packs of sheet protectors. The tab dividers I already had, but ended up not using them.
Then I started going through this pile of paper. Ones I wanted to keep got stuck in page protectors and then filed in categories.
At first I was going to use those tab dividers, but they didn’t stick out past the papers in the page protectors.
So these Post-it tabs that I had on hand (gotten free with coupons a long time ago), came to the rescue.
I just wrote on them with a small sharpie and stuck them on the first page protector in that category. Perfect!
All of this went in the trash. (I think I had Laine’s pumpkin muffins printed like 3 times because I could never find the previous paper – oh, I needed this organization!)
And I created a cute cover and even a label for the end.
Love the chevron print – you can custom design it on this site! You can make birthday invitations, thank you cards, or note cards in any color and customize your text too! I just created my chevron print as a birthday invitation, saved it, then opened it in Picmonkey. Then I put a white box over the existing words on the bottom and added my own text on top. Definitely going to be using their chevron designer again!
The front of our book actually has our last name on it (like “Jones Family Recipes”)– I just erased that part so I could share it here.
I found some recipes I forgot about while I was doing this and I am super excited to use my new book, so I think dinner time may be a little more fun around here for a while.
Thanks Christa for the motivation to get this done! If you are struggling with finding blessings in the everyday things, head over and check out her series – 31 days of Blessings in Disguise – it has been a blessing to me!
How do you organize your recipes? Online, on paper, in a notebook, or a recipe box, or a pile of paper like mine??
I am joining Nester from Nesting Place in writing a 31 days series in October. You can see all the other hundreds of people writing a 31 days series here.
And I am excited to have 3 blogging friends join me in the insanity! Check out their series by clicking on the buttons below.
And my sister-in-law is joining along too! Writing about their transition as they move across the country with four children.
Christina
Linking up at: Love of Family & Home Winter “Organize It” Linky party
love it!!!! It’s so nice to get organized, isn’t it? Whew…I have a long way to go still, but little by little it will get done! 🙂 awesome job!
That’s great! I’ve been contemplating the best ways to organize my favorite recipes; I haven’t decided yet how I want to do it. I have most of my recipes that I like on recipe cards in a box, but I know that box isn’t going to be big enough forever. I’m trying to decide the best way to organize recipe cards in a binder.
I keep mine in a binder too. That way when I print one off that I’ve found on Pinterest, I can just add it to the binder (or throw it away if it’s a dud.) Didn’t know about the binder cover designer thingy, so I’ll have to pin that. Thanks!
I am so enjoying this month of posts! I follow the same method you have done here. One exception though is your terrific idea of using the Post-it tabs because you are right, the divider tabs don’t stick out far enough. Here is my situation though. I have MULTIPLE binders. (Let me add that I am 54 so have been at this for a long time.) For instance, I have one binder just for chicken recipes. One for beef. One just for cakes. One for desserts but not cakes! I certainly need to cull these recipes. I’m thinking I should make one binder just for things I have made, loved and keep making and begin to throw the others out or keep separated in a “to try” binder or something. Thanks for all of your inspiration! Why don’t you just do this every month!? Hello, Christina? Did you just pass out on the floor at the suggestion?!?! Love your blog girl!
Great job! I love when something I use all the time gets organized a better way! When I was first married, I would often call my Mom for recipes she used to make at home. I got tired of hearing, “well, the recipe says…, but I usually…” So that’s why my recipe didn’t taste like Mom’s! Over the past few years, I’ve been adding all our favorite recipes into a file on my computer. I try to keep similar recipes together- chicken, pot roast, ham, lasagna/pasta, etc. This is especially helpful when I need a recipe for a specific item that’s on sale that week, or if we have leftover ham/turkey in the fridge and want to find a different way to use it up. I don’t number them, so it’s easy to add more in the right locations. I not only type the recipe, but also any tips I have about the best way to do things, variations our family likes compared to the original recipe, if it’s a family favorite, where the recipe came from, etc. This is a much easier way to keep recipes organized than using my recipe cards. Cards have to be thumbed through to find the right recipe, are hard to keep in order by more specific categories, aren’t fitting well in my box anymore, get spills on them, often don’t have room for extra comments of suggestions, and have to be filed back again later. Also, if someone asks me for a recipe, I can just select it from my computer, print it off for them, or cut and paste it into an e-mail. Much easier than copying them out on a card. I do recommend having a printed copy in a notebook. You’d just have to update it every so often as you add more recipes. (When my computer monitor died, I was without my documents for several days.) When my daughter gets married, I’ll be able to give her all the recipes we use- with tips, suggestions, and changes next to the original recipe. She can make her own adjustments, but she’ll have an organized file and notebook of all our family recipes. I did see the Pinterest idea for making your own family cookbook including family pictures. I think that would be a great way to pass along the family recipes!
Woohoo! Love the chevron!
I actually have 3 binders. # 1 Bread & Breakfast #2 Just Deserts # 3 All else. Inside this binder I have page separators for sandwiches, soups, etc.
LOVE this – I so need to do this! Thanks for linking up to the Organize It party – featuring you today!
Love the binder….so cute!! I have bunches of recipes…some from family/friends, some cut from magazines, some printed from online. I keep them in accordion folders…one for main/side dishes, one for dessert, and one for misc. Each pocket has a separate category. If I’ve made the recipe, I label it with a “grade”…it has to qualify for at least a ‘very good’ to stay in the folder. Otherwise, I throw it out. I can easily find our favorites as well as new recipes to try when menu planning.
Love love love this idea. I am using this to add to wedding gifts for new brides. Thanks!!!!
I have been meaning to do this for far too long!! It is really killing my attempts at meal planning… Thanks for the motivation 🙂 also, I use a website called zip list to organize my online recipes. You can pin recipes from a blog like Pinterest, but get this–zip list will magically pull the ingredients off the page and add them to a grocery list for you! It’s pretty cool, but I still like having something in my hands rather than digital :).
This is so sticking cute! I started one over a year ago, and you described me to a “T” about the whole recipe problem and what I go through to find ones I want to use. I have even printed one off to find that it has been printed several times before! I will put that on my 2014 “Changes” list of things I want to finish this year! THANKS for the motivation ????
The question marks were suppose to be a smiley face.