When it's too hot to cook....

When it's too hot to cook it's a great time to sort through and organize recipes you want to try out!

Cooking is one of my hobbies.  Buying good cooking magazines such as Taste of Home, Cook's Country, and Cook's Illustrated provides me with a lot of recipes that I want to try.  But like any magazine, there's always a lot of things in it that don't interest me at all. 

Today I decided to go through the magazines I had stacked in the living room and organize the recipes I want to try so I could put the magazines into the recycle bag and get rid of some clutter.

I took an inexpensive composition book and embellished it, added some tabs that I cut using From My Kitchen, and, like a Smashbook, I started smashing the recipes in sort of helter-skelter.  I do not plan to go back and add embellishments to the pages.  As I try a recipe, if we like it, I'll re-type it and do a page for my Cricut recipe album.

Here's a hint about doing layers or shadows for letters.  I placed my shadow paper on the bottom half of my 12 x 12 mat and the other color on the top half of the mat.  Then after I cut the letters out, I removed the top layer and left the shadow on the sticky mat.  It makes it super easy to apply the top layer that way.  No chasing the cutouts over your work table!  My top layer was applied using my Xyron sticker maker so I know they're all stuck down well.

This hint came from the old Cricut message board and I use it any time I have to layer small pieces.

The title on the book front was done with Plantin Schoolbook.  I just used some paper from a cooking themed stack and cut out some words to add.

The book has a few divider tabs just to make it easier to find recipes.  Once I try them, if they're not something we like, I can just jot a note beside it or tear the page out of the book.




Since it's almost 100° today it was just too stinkin' hot to do anything outside.  Organizing my recipes kept me occupied all afternoon and I do feel like I've accomplished something today!