Robin's Birdhouse: Preserving Family Recipes

My project today for DIY Design Studio is to encourage you to preserve those memories associated with family recipes. Have you ever considered scrap-booking your recipes just like your photos? The embellishment possibilities are endless. Add personal photos or digital images. How about fibers, buttons, pearls or Dew Drops, chip board, Scrabble tiles, ribbon...make the cards in your style or theirs! Make a keepsake album or cookbook for yourself or as a gift.

I recently took the time to combine my grandmother's, mother's and my recipe boxes. I found there were several that were in all three. Some were handwritten and some were typed and my choice was to keep the earliest handwritten version of each, even if it wasn't the easiest to read. Could I have typed them into my computer's word or recipe program and made them easy to find by an index. Yep. I could also have scanned them in as pictures and stored them in folders. That's actually what I plan to do with the finished cards so that I can share them with family. But without the actual cards, I would lose a piece of the sentiment...the history...behind them.

I chose to work with two Authentique paper pads. Both Saucy and Fabulous have wonderful retro designs. Since many of my old family recipes are from my grandmother and mother-in-law the patterns are perfect.

Between the two paper pads, there are a few kitchen-specific themes. Pictured above are pans & kettles, strawberries, aprons and utensils. I chose a pink card stock because each of these four has a pink element in the paper. I made the decision to permanently mount these three cards because there was nothing written on the back. You could also use photo corners. If your recipe card has a B-side, you could pop it into a clear sleeve or glassine envelope and have it flip up to access the rest. I plan to photocopy any of the backsides and attach them to the back of the card.

For this recipe from my grandmother, I chose to put her picture on the front. This is one of my very favorite photos of her and my mom and I. This is one of those recipes that was in all three boxes and I thought a photo of the three of us was a fun nod to that. I made a brief note about the photo on the back. Two little gold glam stickers are on the front to give it a little tiny touch of bling. Pretty, without being too fancy. Gram would approve.

This recipe from my mother-in-law is from one of the first family dinners that I was invited to! I asked what she wanted me to bring and she handed over this chicken casserole recipe that was a family favorite. Now that she's gone, I make it with sour cream. I can make that change now on my photocopy without altering her beautifully written card. It's embellished with some darling ribbon and a charm that says, "HAND MADE WITH LOVE." Absolutely fitting for the woman who was my second mom. The picture of the woman cooking was cut out of another sheet of paper from the Saucy paper pad.

My mother preferred her cards typed and used to pull out her old 20 lb. Royal typewriter with the sticky keys when she found one that she wanted to keep. Even in the full size scan, you can't see that there are two pretty big folds in the card. I can't tell if it got caught in the box or just damaged while she was cooking, but just looking at the stains on it tells me it was one of her go-to recipes. It's probably why I love short ribs now! This card was embellished with a pink ribbon and more fun pictures cut out of the paper pad.