https://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/recipe-book • Posted by Libby W.
I bought these recipe cards for £1 from Works (a cheap stationery shop in the UK). I'd been thinking about making my own photo-album style book for a while, as the nice ones are always really expensive, so I decided to do a twist on this and make it into a recipe book for a swap. This took me about a week of evenings to make. You could probably make it a lot quicker if you choose a design with less sewing. Sorry about the blurry photos. Please let me know if you have any questions or don't understand any of the steps.
I bought these recipe cards for £1 from Works (a cheap stationery shop in the UK). I'd been thinking about making my own photo-album style book for a while, as the nice ones are always really expensive, so I decided to do a twist on this and make it into a recipe book for a swap. This took me about a week of evenings to make. You could probably make it a lot quicker if you choose a design with less sewing. Sorry about the blurry photos. Please let me know if you have any questions or don't understand any of the steps.
Slide the recipe card into the bottom left hand corner of the plastic pocket. Use the sewing thread to sew through the plastic along the top of the card.
Slide the 2nd card in, so that it sits on top of the stitching. Stitch on top of this 2nd card. Trim along the edge of the cards, removing the extra plastic, so it looks like the picture.
Slide 2 more cards into the trimmed poly-pockets, so the cards sit back to back. Repeat steps 1-3 until you have 10 plastic pockets. Staple your pockets together along the edge with the holes.
Cut out a piece of card the size that you want to cover to be. Fold the card so that it has a spine where you can slot in and stick the spine of the plastic pockets.
Cut out a rectangular piece of fabric that covers the outside of the cardboard, with enough spare that it folds over the corners into the inside of the cover.
Cut out another piece of fabric to cover the inside of the cardboard.
Cut out a cupcake case shape of one of the fabric scraps and sew onto the cover piece of fabric. I stitched mine on with vertical lines to look like the folds in a cupcake case.
Cut out a cherry of a piece of red fabric and a icing shape from cream fabric.
Glue or stitch the shapes to the front of the cover on top of the cup-cake case.
Embroider the stem of the cherry and the creases in the icing.
Write 'recipes' on the front in pencil and embroider over the lines. The outside cover is now finished.
If you want to you can also embroider the inside cover with your name or the name of the person that you are giving it to.
Glue the front cover fabric to the cardboard. Then glue the inside fabric to the inside of the cardboard.
This is also an optional step. Use embroidery thread to sew through the loops of the poly-pockets. You can then thread a piece of ribbon through the thread loops.
Glue the spine of the polypockets (where the holes are), into the spine of the cardboard cover. I used superglue, but hot glue would probably be better. The polypockets should sit flush with the cover, so that you don't see the edge of the polypockets (like in the picture).
Tie the ribbon in a bow on the front and glue down to secure. Finished! Now fill with yummy recipes!