recipe booklet

[Susie]

Every year I gather everybody's recipes before the cookie exchange and type them up into a little booklet. Does anybody have any ideas of a good size to make it, a cute way to decorate it and the best way to assemble it? I struggle with this every year and would like to make it attractive for the ladies. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

[cookiehost]

Last year was my first time doing the recipe booklet. I used 1/2 of a 8 1/2 x11 sheet for each recipe, typed it in a fancy but easy to read font and used a Christmas colour construction paper for the front and back cover. I used Christmas scrap booking details and ribbon for the front. I used glitter pens for the writing on the front. I had alot of fun with it and they turned out rather nice. Some guests were slow in getting the recipes to me or they changed their recipes at the last minute and I had the booklet already together. Not much you can do at that point. With the $ stores and craft stores, ideas are endless. Hardest part is deciding. Good luck. At least there is lots of time.

[Pisha]

Instead of making a booklet, what about a set of nicely printed recipe cards? Many printers today have separate trays for photo paper; this tray works well for index cards if you don't want the expense of using photo paper. Set your page size to 5x7 in Word and print them on unlined, 5x7 index cards or photo paper. Put all the cards together in a cute, holiday cookie bag and tie with a ribbon. You can add a border, clipart and use holiday fonts to customize the cards. Your guests can easily add the cards to their existing recipe box or it may encourage them to start one!

Creating and printing them can be quick and is pretty easy so you can include last minute recipes.

If you really want them to be in a book, purchase inexpensive photo albums and insert the custom recipe cards. Your guests can add photos that correspond to the recipes.

[Beth]

I use the Microsoft Publisher. I set it up so that it is a regular sheet of paper folded in half sideways. I have everyone email me the recipes and then I copy and paste onto the page. Some times I need to do a little editing to make sure it makes sense to a novice baker. I look for a clip art design I like for the cover. I print out the cover page on card stock and print that out on my printer for each book. The inside pages (since I print it double sided) I take to Staples and make the copies a lot faster for the rest of the books. Then I put the pages together and I staple the book. I found a stapler that will staple half way down on a page and I use colorful staples. They turn out really well.
Unfortunately people did not get me their recipes in time this year, so I will not be doing the book. I know some are going to be disappointed, but maybe next year they'll understand why I bug them to get me the recipes. I didn't pester them this year.