A Recipe Book File for my Mom

My mother and I were talking once and she mentioned how her ancient recipe book containing all the recipes she had accumulated since her marriage was falling apart. She casually commented that she would like some sort of file to stock her recipes, where she could put all the old recipes that she had scribbled down over the years and the new ones that she had printed off the Internet. So when Christmas rolled around, I figured the best gift to give her would be an upcycled file to serve as her new Recipe Book. 

My mother's kitchen is a pristine black and white and she has gone to great lengths to comply with the colour scheme. The counter is black granite, the cupboards are white with black knobs, the curtains are black and white polka dots and even the tea and sugar containers are black and white. It was obvious what the colours of my upcycled file had to be - Black and White. 

The original file was blue and I wanted this to be completely erased. I covered the file from top to bottom with some papers from the DCWV Basic Stack. They had a number of black and white options and I chose the one I thought would work best. The paper size was 12" by 12" so I had to use additional strips of the same design to cover the space but the good thing is that since it was such a pattern heavy paper, the joins were barely visible. 

My mother also prefers clean and simple projects as opposed to heavily embellished ones. So I had to keep this file as minimal as possible. After covering the file with the paper, I added some coordinating  designer tape from ItsyBitsy to conceal the blue edges as well. 

Next I added some round doilies from ItsyBitsy, my mom LOVES doilies and thanks to ItsyBitsy, you can get a variety of doilies in a variety of sizes so getting the appropriate one is easy-peasy. I found the most perfect alphabet letters at ItsyBitsy - they were the right colour, the right size and the right finish so I added them as the title. Then I covered the entire file with a layer of Mod Podge. Once it dried, everything was glued down in place, firmly sealed in and I could rest easy that the Recipe Book File would last for the rest of my mothers cooking days.  

Here's a look at the file when it's open. I used a different pattern paper on the inside but sealed it in with the same designer tape. I picked up some file separators at my local stationary store so that my mother could categorise similar recipes together. I literally finished this project at 2am on Christmas morning!! And presented it to my mother on Christmas Day, lunch time.

She was very very touched and delighted with her present. And I am delighted to share this one with you. Thanks so much for stopping by and from all of us here at ItsyBitsy, have a great 2014!!!

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