It's been over 28 years since I moved to Arizona right after college. Before I left, I rummaged through my mom's recipe box and copied down a few favorites. I really didn't know how to cook that well, but I figured (hoped) I could follow a recipe. I moved to Arizona with one vessel to cook in - a Wok. I had no pots or pans, but since I moved out to Arizona without a job and I really didn't even know where I was going to live, kitchen stuff was the least of my worries. Fast forward through those 28 years...my mom visiting and bringing more recipes with her. Her homemade french bread, cinnamon rolls, gingerbread cookies...of course I never made those myself. But she was out here often enough that she kept copies of those recipes here. Handwritten recipes and notes of what and when they were made. Each time she visited, we had to search for those recipes as they undoubtedly were stuck in a cookbook or under a pile of papers somewhere. It was frustrating to say the least. When my local scrappy buddies first came up with the idea of a recipe binder, I was hesitant. I still don't consider myself much of a cook (try being a great cook with 5 males in the house who are super picky and rarely eat the same thing), so I wasn't sure I wanted to go through the hassle of making one. Then I remembered the mess all my recipes were in and thought I'd start one digi-style. I chose a gorgeous kit called Here's the Dish by Melissa Bennett and Heather Roselli to make the covers and divider pages. I also used a variety of templates by Cindy Schneider that I altered quite a bit to fit what I needed. I started with a 3" black binder with pockets for inserts. I chose coordinating cardstock for the tabs and used Staples Photo Supreme Double-Sided Matte papers for printing. The only other supplies I needed were a corner rounder and my paper cutter and some ribbon (to decorate the cover). I designed my divider pages using the kit and template. I used a quote on each page and with the beauty of digi-scrapping...I printed each twice and put them in a page protector so that either way the book was open, I could see my pretty divider page. :) My categories are: drinks, appetizers, salads, main dishes, sides, snacks, breads, desserts. The tabs were printed on a regular piece of cardstock, cut down, then I used my corner rounder on the sides. I also reversed the cover (another perk of digi-scrapping!) for the back, and made a spine insert. For my recipes, I put everything in page protectors. It keeps them clean. Some of my friends, though, had a lot more recipes and just used a 3-hole punch and put them in without the protectors. Many of my recipes were on recipe cards. Many were written by my mom and some by my late dad. There was no way I was going to sacrifice those momentos for a prettily scrapped recipe. Plus, all those recipe cards I hand-wrote when I moved out to Arizona - I kept those as is also. So my binder has ended up a mish-mash. And I love it that way! If you do put in your recipe cards, you'll want to put those in a page protector so you can see the front and back of them. Here's some of my mom's notes I've saved and added them in next to the recipes. How priceless is that! Especially the times when my parents came out when my boys were born and she took care of all of us. Here's the rest of my divider pages. When my mom visited this past summer, I had her bring out her most favorite recipes from her recipe box - there were random notes, newspaper clippings, and various recipe cards. I took pictures of all the recipes I wanted and will add them to the book. So I still have some work to do! She was thrilled that we don't have to hunt for her recipes anymore - she knows to head straight for my new binder.