Recipe Box Redo

Written by Shannon Leigh

To help simplify 2011 organization is KEY. Matt and I have decided to take a couple nights each week and simplify certain areas of our home. It's going to be awesome and it's going to make my life so much easier!

Starting small: recipe box redo

Another goal for 2011 is to cook more, so naturally I really need my recipe box in tip top shape.

A few years ago my mother-in-law gave me a beautiful wooden 4x6 recipe box.

She made copies of all of Grandma Ruby's recipes, color coded and all.

I really love the box and since she gave it to me I have kept all of my recipes in this box. However, they were completely unorganized.

BERFORE

It may not look that bad to YOU but trust me peeps, it was bad!

The problem was that my old recipe cards were on 3x5 cards instead of 4x6's.

I had dividers but they were also the 3x5 size and they weren't personalized. They had titles like "light meals" HAHA yeah right, like I have recipes for light meals.

The big cards would swallow up the the small cards, including the dividers, and leave me searching for a recipe for all of eternity. My husband, God bless his soul, couldn't find a recipe card if his life depended on it (is it just me or do all men lack the "looking" gene).

So I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I made my own dividers out of old album covers!

DONT worry, being an avid record-listener, I only used covers of maimed albums or those that didn't have records at all.

I am LOVING the colorful/graphic result!

I also took on the painstaking job of rewriting my small recipe cards onto large ones, and now LOOK how perfectly organized they are! Talk about satisfying!

It's the small things, really.

I can't take complete credit for the idea. I was skimming the internet for ideas and came across THIS Etsy shop. I loved the idea so much that I decided to take on the project myself. But if you need a new recipe/address box this is the place to go!

I used label tape to make my own divider labels but you could just glue on a white piece of card stock and handwrite them as well.

To make your own you will need:

• Album covers
• sharp scissors/paper cutter
• label tape or white card stock
• sand paper

How To:

1. First make a template. I used the back of an album and just traced a 4x6 card. I then cut a half 2 in. circle that I could move to different locations on the card (left, center, right).

2. Then I decided which section of the album cover I wanted on the face of the divider. Then I traced, and cut. Using the paper cutter for straight edges.

3. Once they were cut out, I sanded the edges a bit to get a worn look.

4. I then labeled each divider with label tape.

Easy as pie!