Scrapbook Photo Album - Family Recipes

Most families have special recipes and food traditions that should be captured, assembled, and passed down from generation to generation. An excellent way to do this is by creating a 'Family Recipe' scrapbook photo album.

A great idea is to personalize the scrapbook album even more by using photographs and journaling. This tells the story behind the recipe, such as where it originated, how it has been modified, whose favorite recipe it is, who makes the recipe most often.

You can embellish the scrapbook album with family photographs and photographs of the recipe itself, plus pictures of the process and ingredients. Adding the story behind the recipe casts that special touch that each generation will cherish.

To begin the preparation, gather all of the recipes you are going to use. A good way to do this is at family reunions and holiday get-togethers. Via technology you can email recipes and details back and forth. Look through your cookbooks, recipe boxes, and drawers. Depending on how you want the recipe scrapbook album to look and flow, you can organize the recipes by courses, recipe categories, or by family member.

There are several ways to enter the recipes. You can handwrite the recipes directly into the scrapbook, on a piece of paper, or even a recipe card. If you would rather, you can also type the recipes on the computer and print them right onto the scrapbook paper of your choice, plain paper, and/or recipe cards. Another good idea is to create pocket pages so the recipes can be removed. You can put them on decorative tags or add tags to the recipe cards and pockets. There are also clear plastic pocket inserts that you can use. These are great when you use a three ring binder for the recipe scrapbook album, because they can be removed, cleaned, and you can add to the album later.

I also printed the pages, created at Scrapblog.com, glued each page back to back, punched one hole in the upper left corner, and used a binder ring to hold them together.

The scrapbook album layout is up to you. You can group a few of the recipes on one page if you're doing a larger album, or you can dedicate an entire page to each recipe. Including photographs of the person who provided the recipe and pictures of the dish is a great way to tell the recipe story and add that personal family touch to every page. Those special quotes from someone about what they love about it or a special memory you or they associate with the recipe are certainly cherished each time the recipe is viewed.

Taking the album to your next family get together to share it with everyone who contributed a recipe and others is great fun. They could even add a personal note about their recipe. Be sure to leave room to add more recipes and stories as the family grows. A three ring binder is good for that and thrifty too!

Recipe Scap Page