rechelle's lifelyrics

I had this overwhelming pile of recipes from every which way. There were 3×4 cards, 5×7 cards, pages torn from magazines, handwritten notes of my own and from my friends on every size of paper you can imagine. I finally realized how long it would take me to find, you know, that one recipe that I could picture in my mind – that I remembered using a few years back – on a colored index card…

I devised a plan to GET ORGANIZED and CONQUER this dilemma!

I purchased two heavy duty binders and a box of 100 plastic sleeves for 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper to start.

Then I created heavy duty dividers and labeled plastic tabs that I could attach to the top of the dividers, as you see here.

The most time consuming part of the job was organizing the recipes I had – either by taping a few of them to a plain sheet of paper, or having 2 full pages open so I could see both at the same time, etc. I was excited though, because I knew I would have a very good return on my investment of time.

I have used and expanded this system for nearly 20 years, and I can tell you it was a very worthwhile project!

I’m sharing this tip for organizing your recipes as I am publishing my first recipe on my new website page, “Rechelle’s Recipes for Family Gathering.” I’ll be sharing original recipes that I have created through the years. Sometimes I started with a recipe I found online or in one of my cookbooks, and then morphed it into what felt natural to me, and other times, I just created a brand new thing based on what I had on hand.

I really hope you’ll stop by now and then to check out what I’m sharing, and even try a few of them out for your own family gathering!