Thursday, June 16, 2011

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!

10 comments:

Crystal said...

Great idea!

KarenK said...

Great idea. From my kitchen has great images for this project!

Rosa Lee Howington said...

Thanks for sharing I loved it!

KarenY said...

This is such a great idea. Helps to get rid of all those magazines and newspaper clippings while trying out different smashbook cover layouts. thanks Linda!

Avra Williams said...

This is great! I SO need to do this!

Rachel said...

Great idea! I don't want to invest in a smash book, and I have a TON of composition notebooks from the Staples sales over the summer (I bought 'em for use with my students, but I think I might take one of 'em for myself!). How did you adhere the paper to the cover?

Linda said...

Rachel--I used my ATG gun and put double strips of tape around the outside edge of the book cover and a couple down the center.

Then I placed my paper on the cover, letting a little hang off the edges and just trimmed it to fit with my scissors.

Rachel said...

Thank you so much, Linda! I was wondering how you got those perfect corners! I didn't know if you overlapped or trimmed it off. It looks very professionally done. Thanks again!

Unknown said...

What a great idea, I to collect all these magazines and theres always a few recipes I want to try in each one but, then they are stack in very nock and crany and then sometimes I cant remember which one I wanted to try. This is such a cool idea I think I may be scrap lifting from you. also I can pass them on to my daughters as they build thier own collection. Thanks for sharing!

fitgardenerkristine said...

Love this idea! I wondered how to keep all the recipies and get rid of the magazines. I'm so scraplifting this idea!!!!