Q: Last time I was home, I noticed that my mom and my sister had piles of recipe clippings, and I thought a recipe binder would make a great gift for them. To personalize it, I wanted to get some nice recipe cards customized for them. Any recommendations on where to find those online?
Other recommendations for a recipe binder? Should I go for something store-bought or make it myself?
Sent by Lindsey
Editor: Lindsey, Etsy has a lot of options for customized recipe cards, so there's a good chance you'll find a design you think your mom and sister would like. And here are two binders that might work for you, one for sale and one homemade:
→ Recipe Storage Binders from Meadowsweet Kitchens
→ Great Recipe Binder System: With Free Downloads!
Readers, do you have any recommendations for custom recipe cards or binders?
Related: Good Idea: Printable Recipe Card Templates
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I recently made my own recipe binder with pretty supplies from the Martha Stewart line at Staples.
I second ETSY. You can actually buy printable cards and print some recipes right on them for easier reading and of course include lots of blank cards. I would make it yourself and make it very personal. I used full page printable cards and page protectors.
It'll make a lovely present, good luck!
If you don't mind transcribing them to a computer;
* Get some photo paper, 5x7 or whatever suits your eyesight
* Open your favorite text editor and set document to dimensions of photo paper you have
* Transcribe recipe into document
* Print on photo stock
* Get yourself one of those $2 photo books from Michael's etc. to put the printed recipes in
Professional quality, and the plastic photo book I got is wipe down-able.
I'm a graphic designer and enjoy cooking as well, and this is something I've thought about doing.
Lots of professional printers (e.g. UPrinting, OvernightPrints, VistaPrint) have postcard-sized print items that would work perfectly as recipe cards if printed with no coating on the paper.
I'd even be happy to help design something custom for cards or a binder if anyone was interested. Lindsey and any other interested parties, feel free to contact me at dave@davegoesthedistance.com and I can hook you up. :)
Depending on how big the piles are, you may need more than one notebook, or whatever recipe storage option you choose.
I originally began with 2 small notebooks- thanksgiving and Christmas to keep sane. i expanded to a third holiday ideas book sorted by type, and then created a general year series of notebooks- soups and salads, breakfast, Family Favorites, grilling, Ice cream, Ideas, and really need to break out the proteins, and so forth.
I had quite the pile of magazines and clippings and computer files. Office stores have binder pages for 3x5, 4x6, and full page protectors. With a "pile of clippings" you'll likely need all those sizes and in large quantities.
Time-wise, do you have the time needed to create the binder, cards, dividers yourself? Would you be typing up cards for them too? or just presenting the binder ready to finish themselves? Actually placing all the recipe clippings into any binder takes time. Getting the binder well-organized takes forever. Just saying. You might want to go with the ready to load up version and linger after they open it to help insert all the recipes into it.
I'm going to be the contrary one (someone has to do it) and ask whether you're sure they don't like having piles of recipe clippings around. That's my system, and it's highly organized chaos, which works for me. If someone got me a nice organizing system, I'd thank them profusely and drop in the thrift store bin as soon as possible.
@alicelost
I guess that's the danger of any highly personal gift. I think the thought put into something like this is commendable though, and it doesn't require huge amounts of resources which makes it worthwhile in my opinion, even given the risk of disposal at the thrift store.
In the same vein, any gift has the potential to be unwanted or unneeded unless the person asked for something specifically, and in that case there is not that much thought put in as opposed to something really personal like this.
Recipe cards annoy me - they're often too small to include all the information. Instead, I have binders with page protectors - one for baked goods and one for savory staples. When I find a recipe online, I print it out and after it gets made and I decide to keep it, then that recipe goes into the binder. For newspaper clippings and such, I have a smaller spiral bound notebook that they get pasted or taped or copied into. Recipes I haven't tried out yet go into a plastic file folder, again organized into meal type things and baked things.
It's good to be organized, but that is really a personal system. For me, recipe cards just aren't the way to go.
Custom in that i can buy any binder i really like, buy the plastic sleeve thingys, and some thick paper. I can create my own by both inserting full page magazine clippings into the plastic sleeves and then tape smaller clippings to something else. I have been wanting to do this for quite some time. But i want to do it right!
I haven't tried these but I think they look nice: http://www.lovevsdesign.com/printables/kitchen/vintage-recipe-cards