Tutorial: Easy Thanksgiving Recipe Book

Because we live far from family, I cook our Thanksgiving Dinner each year.  This leaves the burden on me and my hubby to make all components of the meal....and this can get rather dicey.  Over the years I have learned a lot from making these holiday meals on our own...

- Timing is everything

-  Organization is key

- Anything you can do to make this process easier is worth doing.

So, earlier this year, I printed our go-to holiday recipes, organized them by which recipe should be started first (the Turkey, then the stuffing, etc) and laminated the entire thing. This way I don't have to dig through a recipe book and I can spill stuff on the recipes and then wipe clean.

- cardstock in plain white and autumn colors

- a word processing program (like Microsoft Word)

- a Purple Cows Laminator (read my full Product Review here)

- free clip art

- hole punch

- binder ring

1. Open your word processing program and create a new document.
2. Go to "Page Layout" and change all margins of your document to .5"
3. Then slide the rulers along the top of the document to make your document 5&1/2 inches wide. Slide the ruler from the bottom upwards to make your document 3&1/2 inches tall.

4. Type the recipe for your dish into the document, making sure it fits on one page. Even if the text looks small, it will be easily readable. Make sure you note the cooking time at the top of the card right beside the title.
5. Print onto white cardstock.
6. Use a trimmer to cut out to a 4x6" card. Repeat with other recipes.
7. Make a cover by cutting your colored cardstock into 4x6" and putting a title and clip art onto white paper and mounting it onto your cover.
8. Laminate all cards.
9. Put cards in order of time they take to prepare, starting with the longest cooking time and ending with the shortest.
10. Using hole punch to punch top left corner and secure cards together with a ring.