Papercrafting a Cookbook

Hi Everyone!

It's been a few days since you have heard from me. I actually took some time off from papercrafting to visit with friends, bake zucchini bread and zucchini chocolate cake, and fill 2 large Dutch ovens with soup. While I was making the soup I had an idea. I decided to create some cookbooks with recipes for 6 of my family's favorite soups in it and give them to some of my family and friends for holiday gifts.


I recently ordered sheets of 8.5" x 11" chipboard from http://www.ckresale.com/ to use to create mini albums, but decided to also use some of it for my cookbooks. The company shipped quickly and the heavy package was packed very well. My only "complaint" is that many of the sheets of chipboard measured 8.25" x 11" instead of the 8.5" x 11" that I ordered.

I used my paper cutter to cut the chipboard so that it measured 8.5" x 5.5" which means I got 2 pages from one sheet of chipboard. My paper trimmer struggled when I attempted to use it to cut the chipboard, but the paper cutter cut it easily.

I cut 4 (8.5" x 11") pieces of chipboard so that I would have 8 (8.5" x 5.5") pages for my cookbook. I rubbed a dye ink pad along the side edges of the chipboard to give them some color. I also brushed that same dye ink pad along the front and back edges. I used Scor-tape to affix 8.5" x 5.5" sheets of paper from dcwv's Nana's Kitchen 12" x 12" paper stack to both sides of the 8 pages. Then I used a 2-hole paper punch to punch holes at the top of each page.


I typed, printed, and trimmed the recipes I wanted to use and glued them to just one side of 6 of the pages I had covered with paper. I didn't glue a recipe to the page that I am using as a back cover. I decorated one page to use as the cover of my book.

I wanted to use cooking tools, aprons, chef hats, and vegetables to embellish the cover and the pages in my book. Die cuts, rubber stamps, chipboard pieces, and stickers are just some of the products I could use to create those embellishments.

I have a Sizzix apron and oven mitt die. Jolee, Recollections, Mrs. Grossman, SandyLion, and Maya Road are among the companies that have the products that I had in mind. I decided that some of the layered embellishments that I love to use on my cards didn't work for me in my cookbook so I peeled the ones I had down to one layer. I wanted the look of dimension without actually having dimension so I coated most of my embellishments with Glossy Accents. I was thrilled with the results. By adding a coating of Glossy Accents to ordinary stickers I transformed them into epoxy stickers.  If you study this picture you will see the difference between a spoon that has been coated with Glossy Accents and one that hasn't. 

I used plastic chicken rings from Creative Teaching Press to bind my book together. Metal book rings would of course also work, but I have lots of chicken rings so I decided to use them. The letters I used on this first book are Maya Road chipboard letters. I sprayed them with Maya Road's red metallic mist and let them dry before I adhered them to the book cover.

I designed the cookbook with the rings at the top so that the pages could be flipped over until you reach the recipe that you want to use.  The cookbook will stand up on its own. 

It took some time to figure out how I wanted to create my cookbooks. Now that I have done that I have decided to make one for our favorite Christmas cookies.  While I was shopping for embellishments for my soup cookbook, I picked up others for the cookie cookbook.  Once it is created I will share photographs of it with you. 
 
When Robbie and Marie were young children most of my family lived in the area and often joined us for Thanksgiving dinner.  In addition to the turkey and stuffing our meal included a multitude of vegetables and a vast selection of pies and breads.  Marie insists that we include all of those foods year after year even when it's just the 3 of us having dinner.  I am planning to create a cookbook called "A Hartery Thanksgiving" especially for Robbie and Marie so that they each have a collection of the recipes for our traditional meal. 
 

My life is especially busy these days as I plan the trainings and classes I will be teaching this fall so I may not be posting quite as often as I have over the past 5 months, but please stop by to check for a new post and please leave a comment so I know you've been reading the posts.  Talk to you soon! 

PS....I am adding this message 2 days after I created the cookbook.  Today was the day that I made the date book which is in the post that follows this one.  The pages in the date book are made from heavy scrapbooking paper that was folded in half which is the equivalent of 2 sheets of paper backed together.  I have decided that when I make future cookbooks including the cookie one I have been working on tonight, the front and back covers will be made with chipboard that is covered with scrapbook paper.  The pages will be made with 2 sheets of heavy scrapbook paper that are glued back to back.  The pages will still be able to flip over the top of the book and the book will still be able to stand because the covers will support the weight of the pages.  If you decided to make cookbooks you may want to try them that way.  Talk to you again soon.

Carol

Happy Friday!

Good Morning Everyone!

I often purchase stamps that have specific messages such as "Happy Birthday", "Congratulations" or "Get Well", but the stamps I want to share with you today are just for fun. I’ve learned that humor works as well in cards as it does in life. We smile, we laugh, sometimes we nod our heads in agreement when we read a humorous card or one that "plays with words".

I order many of my stamps from http://www.addictedtorubberstamps.com/ which is one of my favorite sources for stamps. I think their search engine is fantastic. Sometimes I get an idea for a card and think I’d like a stamp for it so I search on their web site and more often than not I find exactly what I wanted. They ship quickly and protect the stamps by placing them on corrugated cardboard and shrink wrapping them. The stamps arrive with a couple of pieces of hard candy and a sample sheet of scrapbook paper. If you are a member of their "Red Carpet Club" your order gets priority shipping and arrives with a surprise in it. Sometimes the surprise is a stamp or some ink. I ordered all of the stamps that I am writing about in today’s blog through addictedtorubberstamps.

First up, "I like you better than flies!" This stamp is manufactured by Penny Black and is called "better than flies!" "Inky the Frog" is manufactured by Inkadinkado. I didn’t have any "flies" handy, so I substituted some dragonfly gems from Favorite Findings. I figured the frogs wouldn’t mind. I used my Twinkling H20s to paint my frogs

Next up, "Life’s a beach" from A Country Welcome stamps. I’ve had that stamp for a while, but hadn’t used it recently. I picked up some Jolee’s "Beach Bikini" dimensional stickers in the clearance section of Michaels the other day, and thought they’d work well with my stamp. I threaded the clothesline onto the "pebbles" paper before I attached it to the card. The clothespins are just strips of adhesive labels. I know that there are mini clothespins, but decided that the other embellishments added enough dimension to the card.

Now that I am creating more and more cards when I am stamping an image, I stamp extras, emboss them, and set them aside so I can "grab" one when I need it. I have extra images of "Life’s a Beach" so I decided to use one for the next card.

My July/August 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine arrived in the mail the other day. I love the sandcastle idea that is shown on pages 27 and 28 of that issue. You can print out the template for free on the Creating Keepsakes website. The sandcastle is created from sandpaper. I’ve used sandpaper on other cards so I store some sheets of it with my scrapbook paper. The different grades of paper have different shades and textures. You can pick up packages of sandpaper at the dollar stores. There will be several grades of paper in each package. To create the sand on the beach just tear strips of sandpaper. Don’t try to tear it straight...just tear it!

I used Cloud9Design rub ons on my card. I was amazed that they stuck so easily to the sandpaper. I backed some scraps of red and blue paper with Scor-Pal tape and then cut out the flags for the castle. The backing for the tape peeled off easily and then I attached the flags to the card.
And that’s it for today! Have a great day!
Carol