Organizing My Most Used Recipes

I have a lot of recipes and a lot of duplicate recipes. It was time to get rid of the duplicates and make it easier for me to find the recipes we use more often. I started by taking out all the recipes I had stored loosely in a binder. It was starting to be a mess and it was taking longer and longer to find the recipe I wanted.

I bought these picture display boxes a few months ago at Big Lots (for only $1 each) and thought they would work perfect for what I had in mind. Ignore the picture in it, I think it looks kind of creepy.

Then I went through my scrapbooking stash for items I might want to use to decorate them.

I started by putting my tried and true recipes into categories. Ones I knew weren’t duplicates and were family favorites. Most of these were recipes from family members or friends.

I made another pile of recipes that might already have duplicates. I went through my cookbooks to look for possible duplicates and tossed the ones I already had. Sometimes I had made changes in the recipe, so I would make a notation of that in the cookbook.

And this was the discard pile of recipes I really didn’t use or ones that were duplicated.

In one of the boxes I put main dishes, salads and breads.

In the other one I put  desserts, drinks and dips.

I added some recipes to these cute tags, but later decided to only use the one on the left. It has all my family’s favorite recipes listed on it. I put them in the order listed in the box so they could be found easily.

I added some scrapbook paper to the front page.

And then embellished it with a couple tags.

To the front of the box I added a flashcard tag and a ribbon around the bottom.

Then I added a couple embellishments and ribbon to the second box.

And here they are by my cookbooks. Now it’s a lot easier to find the recipes I use most often. And don’t they look cute? I can also change out the front cover as often as I like if I want a different look. Now I need to cover the cookbooks to match. Oh, and I love my canister of paper straws by them.

I just had to show you this picture of my kids favorite thing to do with the straws.

{ 18 comments… add one }
  • down bedding July 15, 2010, 9:02 am

    that’s a lot of recipes!

  • Becky July 15, 2010, 10:42 am

    You’ve just given me my next project. Hopefully our Big Lots has those frames too! Love the idea

  • Creative Decor by Brooke July 15, 2010, 4:07 pm

    Oh, how I need to do that. I need some serious organization in that area. Thanks for helping me get motivated.
    Brooke

  • Avril Miller July 16, 2010, 6:56 am

    Beautifully done!

  • Melissa July 16, 2010, 3:23 pm

    I love this idea, I have been trying to think how to organize those dang recipes. Thanks!

  • Megan July 16, 2010, 6:31 pm

    Great idea. I love it when things get repurposed!

  • Chris July 16, 2010, 7:59 pm

    Oh how I love some good organization! This is SUCH a neat idea, and it’s cute to boot!

  • nori July 16, 2010, 8:44 pm

    that looks so classy! great idea and i love how you put it together!

  • Terry July 17, 2010, 2:18 pm

    Great idea! I’ve seen picture holders before and never thought about putting recipes in them. I love it!

  • Kansasa Amy July 17, 2010, 4:23 pm

    Great idea! I’m going to be organizing my recipes soon, might have to try this out.

  • creativejewishmom/Sara July 17, 2010, 5:04 pm

    Wow, I’m so proud of you for organizing your recipes!
    What a great feeling, and great inspiration. Thanks so much for sharing on craft Schooling Sunday. All the best!

  • Amanda Formaro July 20, 2010, 7:32 am

    Hi Leanne! I just wanted to stop by and let you know that I linked to this post today from the new Home & Garden channel at Craft Gossip. 🙂 My hope is to share many of the fabulous projects I see everyday with the vast CG audience. I hope you will not only stop by and subscribe to CG, but will tell your friends about the new category! Hope you see some traffic from it!

    Your feature will appear in the main Craft Gossip RSS feed, on the main home page and can be found directly here
    http://homeandgarden.craftgossip.com/2-great-ideas-for-organizing-your-recipes-2/

  • Liz@Its A Blog Party July 23, 2010, 8:21 am

    I absolutley love it! It looks so cute!
    Thanks for linking up!
    ~Liz

  • alecat July 25, 2010, 7:40 am

    I so need to organise my recipes. I started having them organised into book with plastic sleeves, but over the years it’s full of loose papers.
    Thank you for the inspiration. I’ll start to nut out those recipes I’m keeping and those I’m tossing asap!

Leave a Comment

CommentLuv badge

Next post:

Previous post:

About Me | Disclosure Policy | Copyright Policy | Privacy Policy | Contact Me