How To Make a Recipe Binder

Well, how was your Thanksgiving? I came down with blisters in my throat on Wednesday evening, and I couldn’t cancel Thanksgiving, so I powered through the day with the help of my mom, Miss 17 year old and my Swedish daughter. Afterward, I collapsed into a long nap. When I woke up I could barely stand the pain in my throat. Right now, I am taking Advil to deal, but I think I am going to need to go to the Dr. Yay for me! But enough about me let’s talk about recipes!

Today, I am sharing a post that I shared at the beginning of November over on JOYful Home and Life. It is the recipe binder I recently made. I love it so much and have been getting so much use of it, that I wanted to formally share it with you as well.

For most of my adult life, I have been collecting recipes. Some of them I have written down on recipe index cards and placed in a little index recipe card binder that I received as a wedding gift back in 1992. Most of those are recipes from family members. Some of them I have clipped from magazines. If I saw something that looked good, I just ripped it out. Some of them I have printed out from different websites.

All of these recipes have been sitting in a pile, haphazardly clipped together with a binder clipped for years. When I wanted to used one of the recipes, I would go on the search. It would take several minutes to look through my pile until I found what I needed. And most of these recipes are for things that I cook often. So I had found myself avoiding making these dishes because I didn’t feel like going on the search for it.

Well no more, because I finally made a binder for all of my recipes! This is something that has been on my to-do list for at least a year. I even bought the binder! I do not know why I did not do this sooner, because it feels so good to have all of my recipes organized neatly into one place, all labeled nice and neat. Now, when I need a recipe, all I have to do is open my binder, flip to the section I need, and easily find what I am looking for.

And you can do it too, in less than an hours time! Would you like to see what I did? It really was simple, and I know I am not the first person to make a recipe binder, but I thought maybe you, like me, could use some inspiration to take those recipes that are scattered about and get them organized!
These are the supplies I used for my binder.

Three Ring binder

Paper dividers

Plastic dividers with pockets

Secure top sheet protectors

Recipe cards

Other recipes

Three Hole Punch

I started out by organizing my recipes into categories. I removed all of my recipe cards from the small binder they were in. I divided everything up into these 7 categories, and I made a Table of Contents Page using clip art. I decided to have a separate section for Thanksgiving, because I host Thanksgiving dinner at my house, and I have been using the same recipes for several years. This way when it is time to start preparing for Thanksgiving dinner, everything is all in the same section and can be easily accessed.

The next thing I did was to place my recipe cards in the plastic sleeves in the categories they belonged in.

After that was finished, it was pretty much just labeling each divider, punching holes in all of the papers, and placing things in the binder category by category.

I only had 5 paper dividers, but I also had 5 top sheet protectors that I also used as dividers. These still had the little tabs on the sides, but they also had large pockets that you could slide an 8 x 10 piece of paper into. It was fine with me that everything wasn’t perfectly matching. I even had room for some empty recipe cards!

On the bottom of my computer desk, in my dining room, is a shelf where I keep all of my cookbooks. And this binder has been sitting in this spot waiting to contain all of my recipes for several months now. I am so happy that I finally completed this task!

When I made the binder, I purposefully created a tab for Thanksgiving, because I make basically the same thing each year. It came in so handy this week when I hosted 10 people for dinner! I can’t tell you how much I have used this binder since I made it! Searching for a recipe is no longer a dreaded chore. It is a joy to pull out my handy binder and find it is less than 10 seconds! How do you organize all of your recipes? If your way is as haphazard as mine used to be, I hope that I inspired you to make a recipe binder of your own. I will be adding to this binder for years to come. And one day, I will pass these recipes on to my own daughter.

Have a good weekend all! We will be finishing up our stairwell painting project today, so I should have it ready to share very soon, and tomorrow is our trip to the Christmas tree farm!Link Parties:

House of Rose
Shabby Nest
The Dedicated House
Rain on a Tin Roof
Minettes Maze
Uncommon Designs
A Stroll Through Life
The Dedicated House
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