I haven’t been doing much with my art journal in the last week or two, as I’ve been otherwise occupied with new creative endeavors, most notably the mini shrines I’m working on, which will, I hope, end up on Etsy very soon.
The other project I’ve been at is revamping my personal recipe book. A while back I did the outside, which I’ve mentioned; now it was time to do the inside. With all the paper craft stuff I have now it seemed like a crime not to make my recipes prettier.
The result you see below; they’re not complicated, but they jazz up their content and make it a lot more fun to page through the book. Behind each divider are page protectors containing the recipes I consider “mine” – some come from other sources, which I’ve credited wherever I can, but I’ve made all of them enough times to call them tried and true. Behind those are photocopied recipes from books (mostly library books); behind that are recipes clipped from magazines, glued to cardstock. I also tucked some sticky notes and page flags into the binder’s pockets so that I can make notes on recipes if I need to.
These aren’t the best pictures, but the gist is apparent.

The first thing you see when you open the book: the “breakfast” divider.

I tried to keep the fancy stuff to a minimum and stuck with a few stickers and basic backgrounds. Two things were necessary: that the recipes be readable, and that they be protected from spatters. Each sheet of cardstock, which has recipes on both sides, is in a plastic page protector. I can replace things way more easily than you’d think.

I left space deliberately so I can add new recipes later. Wow, this angle really makes it look like the red is crazy uneven – it’s not.

I used a circle punch to make this one a weird shape. I do love punches – when I was a kid I loved to play with the hand-held hole puncher and take the paper dots it left and arrange them in patterns. Now I can do it on a much larger scale.

A recipe from Hannah Kaminsky – I used circles punched out of a scrap of paper as simple embellishments. I like the effect.

I do love my Brownie in a Mug. Funny – the flowers look like they’re stuck to the outside of the page protector because the contrast is so wonky. Rest assured, they’re stuck to the recipe itself.

I sure do have a lot of chai-related recipes.
Materials Used:
Recollections white cardstock
Office Depot house brand plastic sheet protectors – 8 1/2×11″
Office Depot white D-ring binder
Die Cuts With a View “Pocket Full of Posies” paper stack
Bazzill cardstock – red, green, etc.
Papers and stickers from a variety of sources
EK Tools circle punches, 1/2″ and 1 1/2″