So organized! Recipe Folder!

On the internet I have a great way to save tantalizing recipes.

A pinterest board dedicated to nothing but FOOD.

(It’s a place where I save some of my current food obsessions!)

In real life, I have piles of ripped out magazine pages all around our house. Sometimes it takes me forever to find the ONE recipe I’ve been wanting to make. Chances are it could be on my bedside table or on the coffee table shoved underneath a bill. Sometimes I find them crumpled up in the couch! Thanks Cooper!

Bottom line= I am a stack maker; there’s many of them throughout my house.

Here’s what a general pile of mine looks like:

I’ve tackled some of my piles & I’m excited to show you the little project I knocked out this week-

MY NEW RECIPE FOLDER!

I’m always looking for a BETTER way to organize my magazine recipes and I think I’ve finally come up with the solution that will help keep me organized!

I found this little plastic file folder at TARGET! In the dollar bin!! A DOLLAR!!!

It’s the perfect size to store folded magazine pages.

I labeled different sections so I can easily thumb through & find what I’m looking for.

I suppose that I’ll adjust the recipes in the folder with the seasons. Heck, at only a $1 I could have 4 different folders!

It took me awhile to figure out the categories I wanted.

Here’s what I decided on:

ASAP (for recipes I want to make RIGHT NOW)
Appetizers
Breakfast
Beverage
Carbs (for things like Pizza Bread)
Cookies
Dessert
Healthy (for times when I need to be really good!)
Meat
Pasta
Soup

Isn’t that little stack of folded recipes a gorgeous?

It fits in my big bag. I printed out a RECIPE label on my computer and taped it on!

I’m soo happy with it. Now if only I could figure out a way to organize the rest of my life…..

Julia August 15, 2010

I am a organizing nut and I adore this. Great idea for the accordion files- I bought a bunch of them for appliance manuals, important receipts, etc. Thanks for sharing.

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tiina { sparkling ink } August 16, 2010

wow, jealous:)

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andrea August 16, 2010

Well done on getting organised! It’s such a nice feeling. I glue mine in a little notebook 🙂 It’s not categorised, but I don’t keep as many as you do, so it works for me.

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stacy August 16, 2010

Totally going to buy this and do this. I was actually thumbing through my big ol file folder of unorganized recipes yesterday getting annoyed- this is a great idea!

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cindy August 16, 2010

i am also a notorious stack maker…i NEED to do this exact same thing! genius!

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Sarah August 16, 2010

This is so great! I NEED to do this myself… I have the same overflowing and overstuffed manilla folder sitting on my desk right now. Thanks for the tips, I really admire your organizational skills.

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Dana August 16, 2010

I am not organized at all, but I am a little anal when it comes to my magazine recipe cut-outs. I have four notebooks that have star status in my kitchen. They are not cute but they are organized. One is all desserts. One has all mains (split out into pasta, Asian, and other). Another has soups, breads (which includes breakfast-y things), and cookies. The last has appetizers, leaf salads, other salads, and side dishes. I am about a year behind on cutting and pasting though. I love the idea of having a make right away section!

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Stephanie August 17, 2010

I’m a big fan of Tastebook.com. I put together family traditions, blog recipes, magazine clippings, etc and organized them into a hardbound book. It was cheap and the best way to organize my mess of foodie porn! 🙂

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Kelile August 18, 2010

that’s so awesome! i totally have the urge to cook and organize right now!!! 🙂

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Gabi August 20, 2010

I just cant bring myself to rip recipes out of my favorite magazines!! I love to keep them all neatly and beautifully stacked and look through them at Christmas or Thanksgiving or in the summer when I need season-specific inspiration.

My friend and I were just cooking up a three ring binder with clear paper holders for recipe clippings as a present for her mom. Then you can add odd size things (folded), flip through and add extra pages easily, and cook from it directly (with the plastic pages protecting splatters).

I actually just did a post a little while back on recipe management systems; there are some really great digital options available these days.

@Stephanie – This tastebook site looks interesting. Can it keep things online though? The problem with printing a book is what to do when you find something new.

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- Tracy August 20, 2010
  
  If I didn’t have a husband who nags me about piles of magazines all over the place…I probably wouldn’t rip out magazines! I do have like 7 subscriptions…so if i didn’t sort out what i like, I’d been in REAL trouble 😉
  
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  - Gabi August 20, 2010
    
    I keep them on my bookshelves in my office where my fiance won’t notice them 🙂 My old apartment in Boston was a little too full of stacks though, so I have invested in some of the nice magazine holders with the corner cut out.
    
    I can’t believe your husband makes you get rid of them! I would be so sad if I didn’t still have some issues of now-defunct Gourmet; they are so beautiful.
    
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- bob January 22, 2012
  
  I have this system too – it’s the best way to be mess free and organised!
  
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  - bob January 22, 2012
    
    The folder with plastic sleeves system I mean = )
    
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Amy August 24, 2010

Thank you so much for sharing this idea! I went to my Target and picked up 4 🙂 I just don’t have the room for magazine storage and I’ve been wanting the recipes to be readily accesible. I’m still staging out the organization process with the dividers (would it be wrong to have one just for cakes??? haha) but I have sooo many recipes from blogs, mags, etc that it really has been overwhelming trying to keep up with it all. Not to mention getting to actually use the recipes…I usually just end up making the same things since my stacks and piles are out of control.

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- Tracy September 28, 2010
  
  4!!! I’m thinking of picking up more too! I think it would be good to have one for each season!
  
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Teresa October 3, 2010

i love this blog, well, so far. i mean i just found it, but i immediately felt a kindred spirit when i read your About Me! as you can tell i don’t use capital letters unless necessary! i was on the web trying to find a way to organize my recipes in a book. The computer programs are great but my computer is upstairs and the kitchen is down stairs! i love your idea and it will help get me going on the huge pile of wonderful recipes i have found. my husband is a total neat minimalist person, and i am a wanabe perfectionist messy collector. i really have great ideas! i would love to have a room dedicated to a library and i would have at my fingertips all the articles i have collected on decorating, recipes etc…. but i don’t and i don’t like dust and mess so i clip…
thanks, teresa

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- Tracy October 6, 2010
  
  do you have a phone that connects to the web? When I’m cooking I usually will have a recipe pulled up on my phone (from my website) to help me while I’m cooking! It works out soo well!
  
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Project Magazine Hoard = COMPLETE! › shutterbean January 15, 2011

[…] have to organize that collection too! You can check out how I organized recipes from my magazines HERE. Like what you read? Get updates for free! ‹ 365- Weeks 1 & […]

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