Scrapbooking Your Family Recipes

I recently came across a neat idea for a scrapbook. The person,
who created it, took her family’s favorite (and famous) recipes
and created a scrapbook out of them. Recipe scrapbooking is
such a great way to make sure all these great recipes of
members of the extended family are preserved.
 
Start by getting all the recipes together. Look through your
own notes. You’ll be surprised how many of the recipes you
already have. Mine are usually scribbled on pieces of notepaper
and then stuck into one of the cookbooks I have.
 
You can handwrite the recipes directly in the scrapbook, on a
piece of paper or even a recipe card. Of course you could also
type them up in your computer and print them out.
 
Take a quick inventory of the recipes from other family members
that you already have. Are you missing Aunt Betty’s famous peach
cobbler recipe? Call her up and get it.
 
Talk to other members of your extended family about your recipe
scrapbooking idea. You will get plenty of suggestions about what
else to include.
 
You can organize the recipes within the scrapbook by course, or
by the family members. Group a few of the recipes on one page,
or dedicate an entire page to each recipe. Include pictures of
the person you received them from and pictures of the dish
itself if you have them. I also like to add a little note about
each recipe. You could write about how your great-grandmother
brought this recipe with her from Italy, or how you invented
your famous pie because you were missing one of the ingredients
of the traditional recipe.
 
Add some cooking or baking related borders and pick up a set of
recipe themed stickers to complete your family recipe
scrapbooking album. Take it to your next family function to
share it with everyone that contributed a recipe. You could
even ask them to add a personal note about each recipe. Be
prepared to add more pages, or create a second book as more
family recipes start to surface.
 
You may be tempted to dig out the scrapbook next time you are
fixing grandma’s famous roast. Don’t leave the scrapbook lying
on your kitchen counter while you cook. It’s to easy to spill
or splatter something and ruin all your hard work. Instead, jot
the recipe down on a piece of paper, or even better, get a small
binder and put all the recipe form your family recipe scrapbook
in plastic page protectors that you can easily wipe off.
 
Creating a family recipe scrapbook is a great way to preserve
your family’s recipes and pass them on to the next generation
of family cooks.

About The Author: Vera Raposo has been scrapbooking since her
oldest child was 5. With tons of scrapbooking tips and ideas,
Vera is now sharing some of her best scrapbooking ideas on her
radio show at http://www.scrapperstalkradio.com