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Creativity Monday - Week #4

I've been trying lately to frequent the occasional thrift store... most of you know I'm religious about my summer Saturday morning garage sales, but in the winter, my bargain hunting seems to fade. So this year I've been making the effort to stop by a local store to keep the bargains flowing... and it's been worthwhile - I found a 'tags-on' , never worn pair of jeans for myself the other day that fit perfectly - for $12.

I also found a really ugly metal "I-Do"-on-the-cover wedding flip photo album. Silly me - I forgot to take a before picture of it... but I knew it could be repurposed... so I snatched it up for $1..99.
I am the least organized person when it comes to recipes... I wish I could say I had a fabulous system of keeping track of them, but I don't. I have a mess of a cupboard where I throw in all the magazine pages I've ripped out, the recipes I've printed off the internet and a handful of handwritten notes to myself about meals... oh - it's such a mess. There are a few binders with some of my favorite recipes, but even those are in ill-repair and need some revamping.

Enter the ugly flip album. I pulled out some of my favorite Cosmo Cricket paper, from the "Early Bird" line - and recovered that bad boy. It was easy to do, because the pages come completely off the easel - so the heavy metal front and back got a makeover with these lovely retro prints wrapped around them, reviving the album into something I'm proud to have sitting on my kitchen counter. I added a few tags, some fun embellishments (how about that old school Making Memories leather flower? I think I've had that in my stash unused since about 2004...) and now I'm ready to start putting my favorite go-to recipes inside. The pages are typical slip-in photo pages, which will be perfect because they'll protect my recipes from the inevitable splashes and splatters. And there are LOTS of pages, which is good, because in 19 years of homemaking, I've accumulated quite a few favorite recipes.

And there you have it. A fun splash of color for my kitchen that actually helps solve an organizational quandry - it's a win-win!!!

Comments

  1. Unknown8:05 AM

    Adorable, Cathy! I {heart} CC Early Bird. And thrift stores. And making ugly things into cute and useful things... :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andi7:04 PM

    Love it!!! I challenge your messy recipe collection with my own, "oh someday I will trim them all, tear them out and get them in a box/book" addiction! This will look so adorable on your counter!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Susie9:33 PM

    That is a win-win! And cute to boot... I came across a goals list I made in January 2010 (ahem, that was last January) that said I was going to type out all of our favorite go-to recipes.

    I think I made it to four. It's so not a priority when I know where our favorite recipes are in magazines, cookbooks, etc, KWIM?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jan6:46 PM

    You inspire me. I love looking at what you do. Wish I had an ounce of your creativity. Looking forward to the crop in March.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mom9:57 PM

    Cute Cath - love it!

    ReplyDelete

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