My younger sister graduated from college last weekend – congratulations, Emily!! I am so proud of her, she is going to make an amazing teacher! Look how happy she is to be done…and how happy my parents are to finally get their last child through school :)

I’m excited because Emily is taking after my own heart (and our mother’s) by wanting to learn how to cook! So, for her graduation, I made Emily her own recipe binder to pass along my favorite recipes and for her to collect new ones. Having a recipe binder is the best way to keep all of your recipes in one place, especially since so many recipes are online these days. You just need a cute binder, page protectors, section dividers, and print-outs of your recipes.First, determine what sections you would like to have in your binder and make the labels for each section. For Emily’s binder, I used these sections: Breakfast, Breads, Appetizers, Salads & Sides, Dinner, Cookies & Bars, Cakes & Pies, and Other Desserts. Depending on what kind of cooking or baking you like to do, you can decide which sections work for you. One of my favorite things about the binder is keeping a section at the back for “Recipes to Try”. These are recipes that look good and I have printed out, but not made yet. When I’m looking to do some experimenting, I flip to this section to find a new recipe to try out. Once I’ve tested the recipe and found it’s worth making again, I move it forward into the correct section. Otherwise, I toss it out.

If you want to get a little more creative with it, you could make yourself a front page. I used pictures I cut out from food magazines and some alphabet stickers to make this one for Emily:Also, if it’s a gift for someone, you could use a cute recipe card to write them a little note and stick it behind the front page like this: Finally, take all of the recipes and insert them into page protectors. You can put two recipes in each page protector so that they are back to back and allows you to flip through them like a book. Then, go in and arrange all of the recipes into the different sections. I keep extra page protectors in the back for new recipes.

When you head to the kitchen to cook, just remove the particular recipe from the binder you want to make and clip it to your fridge. The plastic page protector acts as a natural shield to spills that you can easily wipe clean when you are done with it! Having a recipe binder makes it so convenient to keep track of your recipes and keep them in good shape. Try making one for yourself! I actually have two, one for just desserts and one for everything else!