How To Make A Scrapbook For Recipes
Why keep a recipe scrapbook?
Keeping a recipe scrapbook is a great way of preserving your special family recipes to pass down to the next generation. Rather than simply writing the recipes into a notebook, you can create attractive scrapbook pages to feature the details of how to make your favorite dishes. A recipe scrapbook also gives you a place to preserve any memories associated with the foods you love to cook. Creating different scrapbook pages is great fun and allows your creativity free rein as you can make the pages as simple or elaborate as you choose.
What Sort Of Scrapbook Pages Should I Make?
The type of scrapbook page that you make can be as simple as you like. It could just contain the basic recipe on a piece of paper, stuck on the center of the page. Alternatively, a really nice scrapbook page might consist of the recipe, photos of the process of making it and the finished product. You could add in details about where you got the recipe from, which is a particularly nice touch of the dish has been a longtime family favorite. You could also add in details of when you used the recipe, which members of your family liked it and any amusing anecdotes associated with either preparing or eating the dish. I have had some real kitchen disasters over the years and some are fairly comical, so I like to add in little notes on what went wrong on my recipe scrapbook pages.
I like to keep recipe scrapbooks for different types of food and the images featured here are all related to making sweet treats. You could make individual recipe scrapbooks for items such as meat dishes, soups, baking or barbecues or you could put them all in one scrapbook. You could also have separate scrapbooks for summer recipes and winter warmers.
For special occasions such as Christmas or Thanksgiving, it is nice to make up a page for different parts of the meal. I like to include photos of my family enjoying dinner together. If you're very lucky, you might also be able to include a photograph of your family clearing up after the meal while you put your feet up!
Where Do I Start?
You should start by thinking about which recipes you want to preserve. These should be the ones which really mean something to you. Unless you have a lot of time to spend on creating your recipe scrapbook, there is probably little point in documenting every dish you make. Choose the ones that are favorites of your family or which were passed down to you by previous generations. Write these down - I like to use lined paper with an aged quality to it. You can achieve this by rubbing the paper with a most teabag and then leaving it to dry. I also like to use decorative paper or scraps from brown bags etc. Alternatively, print the recipes from the computer, using different fonts for a bit of variety. Try also to get photographs of the cooking process or finished product as this will enhance the layout.
You will need to buy scrapbooking supplies. It is possible to purchase albums created especially to hold recipes. My favorite size is 12 by 12 inches with clear pockets to hold the scrapbook pages. You will need scrapbook papers and embellishments which will complement the theme of your pages. There are lots of free downloads available on the Internet but remember that the paper and ink you use to print them may not be acid free. If you buy in supplies from your local store, they should be acid free which means they will be preserved for many years without yellowing.
On your scrapbook page, you could include food labels or even supermarket receipts for the ingredients. This information may be of interest to your grandchildren or great grandchildren in the future.
Choose what items you want to use and lay them out on the blank sheet. Don’t fix them down until you’re happy with the layout. There is no right or wrong way of laying out your page. It’s your scrapbook. If you are happy with what you see, then it’s right.
Get The Family Involved
Scrapbooking projects can be a fun activity to do with your children or grandchildren. They can help you with the layout of the pages, or can help you to make up samples of your recipes for photographing. Get the scrapbook out once in a while and look through it with the kids to keep them interested. Ask them for their ideas and try to incorporate their suggestions as this will make them feel more involved. That way, they'll have great memories of the creation of the scrapbook when you pass it down to them.
An Alternative to Traditional Scrapbooking
if you prefer, you can do all your scrapbooking digitally. This way, you can share your recipe scrapbook pages with your family and friends on social networking sites. Digital scrapbooking also allows you to save copies of your work on a memory stick or CD. There are lots of great free resources for digital scrapbooking and you will be able to find a wide variety of background papers, embellishments etc to create your digital recipe scrapbook.