Recipe Binder Cover

 

When I first started making dinner for my family, and particularly my kids, I had a few go-to recipes in my arsenal, which I made quite often.  Most of them came from my mom, who is an excellent cook - and can whip anything together, and make any creation and conglomeration of ingredients taste fantastic!

After a while you have to mix things up a bit, of course, and so I try, just about every week, to make something new - to see if it will become one of the family faves. 

So, I read magazines, go to recipe club, peruse recipe blogs, watch the food network, and print off, tear out, or write down recipes that I would like to try.  I would say about half of them don't pan out (get it, pan out?...okay not so funny??) but some of them do - and I keep a giant binder of recipes on hand in the kitchen.  Some are recipes waiting to be tried, and most are recipes that we go back to often.

When I saw this post by Flamingo Toes, I bookmarked it right away, because I wanted a cute cover for my recipe binder too!  I don't quite have the patience for the needlework though, so I modified mine just a little bit.  I think it turned out great, and I love the way it matches my kitchen!

So, I took a piece of canvas drop cloth that I have been using for a bunch of projects (like here and here), and followed the directions that Flamingo Toes gives for cutting a piece the right size - and marking the edges of the binder.

Then I sewed some zig zag lines from top to bottom, where the edge of the spine ended up...

...and I used colors that match my kitchen: blue, green and yellow.

Then, as I said, I am too lazy to needlepoint the words, so I decided to use paint!  This is my second project using freezer paper as a stencil, and it is pretty fun.  (My first project here gives more info).

I cut out the letters out of the freezer paper using my Silhouette, and ironed them down so that they would show on the front and spine of the binder.

 

I carefully dabbed a very small amount of acrylic paint in each letter, alternating between dark blue, light blue and green, to match my stitches and my kitchen!

Once it was dry, I peeled of the freezer paper, and the letters looked great!

 


 


 

Next I found an old spoon...

And hammered it flat (or at least I tried).  It ended up really hammered...with dents and scratches that I didn't like...

So I put a piece of vinyl over it :) 

I hot glued the fabric cover right onto the binder (just like Flamingo Toes described in her tutorial), and I hot glued the spoon onto the front.

And that was it!  Quick project - which turned out so cute!  And I went from boring this....

To beautiful THIS!!...


 




And it just makes cooking so much more fun!

Check out these parties I am linking up to!