Okay, okay, not in any sort of accomplished way.
More in a "hey, look what I did during my maternity leave" sort of way.
You see, we have about 50 recipes that we circulate through in our house (although somehow most of them seem to be desserts...hmmm) and prior to my little project most of them were either shoved in a binder or thrown around the countertops.
As you can image, neither of these were particular good solutions so somewhere during my pregnancy I came up with the idea to put a cookbook together of the recipes that we use and love the most. As with most things that was easier said than done and I didn't get around to finishing the book until a couple of weeks ago. Originally I had the grand idea to make each meal and take a picture of us either making it, eating it, or something along those lines, but I gave up on that idea after approximately 2.2 seconds knowing that I would never finish the book if I had to do that. So instead I just decided to stick random food-related family photos throughout the cookbook so now when we look up a recipe for pasta, we get to ooh and ahh over how cute O was way back in the day. Perfect.
As for the actual process, it was time-consuming but easy-peasy. I down-loaded free software from Blurb, made my own template, and just typed away. Our little family cookbook came out to be about sixty pages and with some upgrades (like a hardcover with an image wrap), the grand total (including shipping) came out to be around 40 bucks (although I did have a coupon that I used).
And how do I like it? Well, let's just say that I'm hoping to do this again in a year or two because really, who doesn't love a book of tried-and-true recipes in a format that also serves as a family photo album?
This is AWESOME! I could see using this with family recipes for a great holiday gift - thanks for sharing :-)
ReplyDeleteSimply brilliant idea. And the family photos throughout are far better than pics of the recipes! The cover is gorgeous :)
ReplyDeleteA most excellent idea! I wanted to put my blog in a Blurb book, but it is already too big for one book (and possibly even too big for two) and I just couldn't get the lay out right to my liking. Love the idea of a recipe book though! :-)
ReplyDeletethat is such a brilliant idea! i'm always losing track of my favorite recipes, too, since they are scattered around the house or the internet or various cookbooks. i may have to copy you!
ReplyDeleteThat would be so great to pass on to your kids when they're older!
ReplyDeleteHoly shit girl that is brilliant. I feel like dropping an F bomb and then making my own recipe book. first I'll need to learn how to cook though. Damn you.
ReplyDeleteIt looks fab, well done! I started a Blurb book of my time spent working in South Africa when I got back and got to, err, day trip 1 #epicfail!
ReplyDeleteseriously, genius! love it and want to have seven!
ReplyDeleteAWESOME idea! please share a few favorite recipes as you make them...????...?????
ReplyDeleteFantastic! I've been wanting to do that with our holiday family recipes (and old family Christmas pictures)...but I just can't get excited about scanning a whole bunch of pictures. One day!
ReplyDeleteThe layout looks great and what an adorable cover! Martha Stewart would be jealous.
I Iove this idea so much! And it looks super professional too! You've got to share your favorite recipe with us!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea.
ReplyDeleteoh, this is fab!
ReplyDeleteI have this binder of family recipes, many of them in my grandmother's or my mom's handwriting, and I have really been wanting to "do something with it." This gives me some good ideas, although I think I'd have to photograph some of the recipes so that they could stay in the proper handwriting and you could see all of the stains, since that's like 90% of the charm, right? Or I might need to develop some scrapbooking skills one of these days.
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