I was determined to get a meal plan organized for my household before my maternity leave came to an end. With a toddler to include in mealtime and a baby to distract from mealtime, I felt it was important to have an organized method to go about getting us all fed a decent meal each night. No more coming home and saying, “What’s for dinner??”
I am happy to say that our meal plan did indeed get implemented just before my leave came to an end and it has been working great for several weeks now! It makes cooking and grocery shopping alike so much easier!
I’m going to present our meal plan to you in 3 parts.
This is part 1!
It seemed like we were always cooking the same old thing. One of the main reasons for this is that we cooked things that we knew from heart. It was too much trouble to go digging through a ton of recipe books to find things to make just to make up the grocery list. Who has that kind of time?
So I decided to make my own recipe book so that all of our favorite meals that we don’t have memorized are all in the same place and thus easy to find.
I started with a blank chipboard album (from 7gypies).
I covered it front and back with scrapbook paper that would match my kitchen decor.
(All scrapbook paper was adhered to the album with Mod Podge.)
I wanted to dress it up a little so I made little tag using scrapbook paper and alphabet stickers. I sealed it with Mod Podge. The jewels are from Teresa Collins. I like the extra bling! Both the tag and bling are attached to the album by some scrap fabric that I tied around the front cover of the recipe album.
I also threaded some sheer black ribbon through the binding to help mask where scrapbook paper ended.
Inside I added more scrapbook paper to the pages of the album. I made my own recipe cards to put in the book.
I used clear corner tabs to keep the recipe cards in the albums.
This works great for two reasons. 1) If a recipe takes up more room than the front of the card will allow, I can write on the back and easily take the card out of the album to read the extra directions. And 2) I might find a recipe I like better and replace the one I currently have. Its happened before!
You may have noticed that my recipes are tabbed. They correspond to a master list of meals that I will share with you later in the meal planning process.
So that is my new recipe book!
Not only is it cute and functional for our meal planning, but the album acts as its own easel so I can easily put it anywhere on the kitchen counter and read the cooking directions!
Katie
Friday 2nd of September 2011
Love this! Thanks for linking up with Sew Woodsy!
Chrissy.Barile
Thursday 1st of September 2011
This is super cute!! Thanks for sharing!
I'm hosting a party tomorrow & would love it if you'd come link up!!http://formamas.blogspot.com/
Chrissy
Tanya Anurag
Wednesday 31st of August 2011
It's functional and beautiful. Rare yet wonderful combination.
We have a link-up party going on - Tea Time Thursdays @ Kreative Korner. I would really appreciate if you'd link up some of your awesome posts there. Hope to see you at the party.
http://tanyaanurag.blogspot.com/2011/08/tea-time-thursdays-4.html
Chef in Training
Wednesday 31st of August 2011
great idea! It looks beautiful too!
I would love it if you would share this and/or any other projects you have been up to at Tuesday Talent Show at Chef In Training! Plus there is a fun giveaway too! Thanks so much and I hope to see you there!-Nikkihttp://chef-n-training.blogspot.com
Patti
Sunday 28th of August 2011
These would make such great gifts for family members - love the design on front! Stop by to enter my General Mills giveaway!