Recipe card file

I've been more and more turning to food blogs for recipes, which has resulted in lots of scraps of paper, with ingredients and directions scrawled on them, overflowing from between the cookbooks in my kitchen. Which is really not the most functional way to store them. So I began to search for that perfect recipe card file. I love this one that I found on etsy, but am not in love with the price tag, so I set out to create a similar, more budget-friendly version.

First I found a plain wooden box, also on etsy, for $6.

It came with a variety of alphabetized dividers, but I decided not to use most of them (I haven't completely discarded them though).

Also inside the box were these index cards dated from 1966. I'm not sure what exactly they refer to or what type of institution they might have been used by, but this Murray guy did a lot of fighting and "horseplay." Also of note is the name "Julius McJunkin."

Moving on...I bought a few packs of multi-colored index cards and used the address stamper to add "INGREDIENTS" and "INSTRUCTIONS" to each card.

Then I copied all of the handwritten recipes onto them. This was particularly time-consuming. And I'm not nearly done, as I still have to copy all of the bookmarked recipes online.

I cut up a thin cardboard mailer to make the dividers and used some alphabet stamps to label them, creating five categories (one for each color of index card): breakfast, sides, soups, entrees, and treats.

Finally, I made a stencil and painted the top to add a little something to the plain wooden box. It may not be quite as nice as the letterpressed cards, but it cost me less than $10 to make.