Creating Homemade Cookbooks for Holiday Gifts

The holidays are often too filled with material excess that clouds the spirit of celebration. Homemade gifts are more thoughtful expressions of love and friendship. Creating a homemade cookbook and recipe exchange is a great way to mark the holidays, share good food and connect to those around you. Using a refillable binder allows you to add recipes every year and create a holiday tradition.

Creating a homemade cookbook is a way to gather favorite recipes and they can be personalized with recipes that cater to the tastes of the recipient. They are inexpensive and contributions can come from each family member as a collective gift.

Any binder that accommodates removable pages can be used to make a homemade cookbook. It should be large enough to receive recipes year after year but also small enough so that filling it with the first entries doesn’t become overwhelming. Usually a 1 ½” to 2” binder from any office supply store is suitable and cost just a few dollars. Using a binder with inside pockets creates a helpful spot to keep notes on techniques and cooking supplies. You should also purchase tabbed dividers so recipes can be arranged by category. These come in packets from 6 to 24 and colorful varieties. You won’t need too many tabs so a smaller count pack is fine for this project. You can also pick up standard printing paper here for the recipe pages.

The binder can be decorated front and back with specialty papers, holiday paper cut outs or festive markers. Craft stores and scrapbook stores both carry a wide variety of these items at reasonable prices. The theme of the decoration can be anything that has a personal touch from a winter snow scene to simply writing a title like “Anna’s Cookbook.” The important thing is to just have fun and keep in mind that the uniqueness of a homemade cookbook is what makes it special, not the quality of your artwork. Little “mistakes” like ink blobs can easily become a fun accent if you use your creativity.