Day #5 in the Twelve Days of Christmas projects!

Here are the recipe books I made for my family last year. I started by collecting recipes from everyone in the family- you know the things they are known for. My mom's dinner rolls and fried chicken, Marilyn's texas sheet cake, Barb's pea salad  LOL The things you expect to see at family dinners. Then I printed the recipes out on cardstock, and layered them according to length.  I decorated plain office file folders with some pretty paper, used a two hole punch and some prongs to secure them into my folders, and oila! They are done  : )     I tried to coordinate the paper to each persons kitchens and /or taste.                            

So the idea with these recipe books is that you get a bunch of friends together and each do a recipe page for however many people are particpipating. Then one person collects them, makes front and back covers, and takes them to Staples (or whatever is local) and has them bound. I think we each paid $3 to cover the cost of laminating the covers and binding the books.  I love this idea. The recipes are generally really good and the book is just adorable. The blue book on the left is one that i received at convention, where we e-mailed recipes to a coordinator ahead of time and then we decorated our own covers when we got to Salt lake City. The red book on the right is one I did with friends on Vancouver Island, my friend Susan organized this swap (and several others).

This is my recipe that I stamped and swapped for the book.  it was perfected by myself and Gary after we had it in a restaurant and got addicted to it, so we decided to try and make it at home. Gary makes this exceptionally well, and this is one of the things I always request for him to make for me.  : )  I think this is a really erpsonal gift and it is so fun to receive new recipes. Its quite inexpensive to do in bulk- just a pack of folders and some paper, plus the prongs...or the cost of paper to print and the binding, depending on which style you choose to do. I hope you and your friends and family have have fun with these ideas! Merry Christmas!