RECIPE BOXES: Good enough for your Grandmother, and good enough for you
I'm putting this guide together not to try to sell you our stuff. (It sells itself!) I just thought it would be helpful to our many customers to put together a guide of everything you might want to know about recipe boxes. Feel free to click on the pictures to get to our store and see more photos, or just keep reading!
Erin & Ted
Founders
Cookbook People
Ok, let's get started.....
The traditional means of organizing your cards is to put them in a recipe box. My own mom's recipe box was a tin box with rust around the edges. You still see a few tin recipe boxes around, and we used to even carry them, but the tendancy to rust was a nuisance and they always had a lightweight, flimsy feel to them.
About 25 years ago paperboard/cardboard boxes started to come in vogue. These can have pretty designs covering to make them really stand out. They have a pretty look, and if you want a recipe box for a nice 3-6 years before you update to a different design, these are a great solution:
If you want something a little more enduring, there are a few faux leather style recipe boxes that offer more splash resistance while also adding some color to the kitchen:
Here's another example below. I'm partial to this one because it's got my own wedding photo in it! Was I really ever that young?
The current trends lean more toward wood boxes--they look great in modern kitchens and yet have a little of that old-fashioned feel. Traditional hard wood recipe boxes can be made of cherry wood, walnut, oak, cedar or poplar. The best selling boxes on our own site are bamboo. We began laser engraving on the lids of the boxes to commemorate weddings, birthdays, and just recognizing the family cook, and they have really become popular.
Cherry: This is our favorite recipe box if budget is no option and you are proud to buy 100% American-made boxes. Cherry accepts a very deep laser engraving, has a lighter colored wood, but still looks regal. My own recipe box is cherry hard wood.
Walnut: This is a beautiful dark wood that really stands out in the kitchen. It is also American-made. Because the engraving looks dark, it doesn't have as much contrast and so your engraved name on the lid may not be quite as obvious. But for many the subtlety of the engraving is the point. You know you're a great cook--why broadcast it? Dark woods have the advantage of hiding stains and blemishes, so it's a great box to pick if you want it to look new 10 years from now.
Oak: Since so many kitchens feature oak cabinets and oak tables, it's a natural fit for someone who wants a matching recipe box. Oak recipe boxes are built from the strongest wood, so they are naturally the most durable and hardest to scuff. We used to have problems engraving on them because of their hardness, but since we upgraded our technology we no longer have that problem. You'll get a beautiful dark engraving on a nice bright oak box and you'll love it for years! And boy do we mean years--a good oak recipe box is an instant heirloom that will get passed down generations.
Poplar: Poplar recipe boxes are just bright and simple and make me smile. The wood can sometimes look more green than you might expect. It's a nice wood to add an additional stain or paint to. Ours are American made.
Cedar (discontinued): I personally love the way cedar recipe boxes can look a thousand different ways depending on the streaks in the wood grain. Some are more orange, and some are more dominated by yellow. The smell is great too. Unfortunately, they don't engrave very well so we no longer offer personalization on them. Because they tend to have lots of knots, we opted to discontinue these boxes because we just couldn't get consistent results. I'm leaving it up here in memory of my favorite box (when they came out well) and my most hated recipe box rest of the time. :)
Bamboo: We introduced bamboo recipe boxes some years ago and they have really taken over the market! With bamboo you get a bright, beautiful hard wood that matches most modern kitchens.
Why are 80% of the recipe boxes we sell bamboo?
1. They cost less. A bamboo stand needs only about 7 years to grow before it's ready to be harvested because they aren't technically a wood--they are a grass! Typical hardwood trees take 50+ years to grow before they are ready for harvesting. Because our costs are much, much lower for this material, we can pass that cost savings on to our customers.
2. They are more environmentally sustainable. Because they grow so quickly, it takes a smaller footprint to grow them. Plus, every bamboo recipe box that isn't thrown in the trash is sequestering carbon.
3. They are just as hard if not harder than most hardwoods.
Your recipe box capacity is limited by the interior depth of your recipe box. I've put together a quick calculator to help you understand how much space your recipe box has and how many recipe cards will fit in it:
Honestly, though, if you have more than 300 recipe cards, you really should consider a second recipe box. Why cram them all in to one space? I keep my main recipe box handy on the countertop for daily use, and a secondary recipe box is stashed in a cupboard for special recipes I rarely use.
]]>We've put together a complete guide to organizing your recipes the old-fashioned way--with paper! This overview will be your complete guide for everything you need to know to get started (or keep going!)
Go to:
Feel free to skip around:
There is no simpler way to track a favorite recipe than the recipe card. A deceptively simple rectangle of paper, the modern recipe card is the ultimate low-tech tool for saving and sharing recipes for current and future generations. Thanks to the internet, there are also now a variety of free options for creating beautiful recipe cards that will do your recipes justice.
There are generally 3 sizes of recipe cards to consider. The 3x5” card is the standard card for most of the last 100 years. (Our own 3x5 recipe cards can be found here.) The old recipe card boxes they fit into were designed for America’s small kitchens. As kitchens expanded, so did the capacity of recipe boxes and binders to allow for the now standard 4x6” recipe card. (Our 4x6 recipe cards are here.) The vast majority of all current recipe cards are this size. In the past decade a few brands have expanded to 5x7” recipe cards. (Ours are here.) You may want to avoid these, however, because while they may fit your own binder they may not fit a friend’s binder you wish to share with.
Most recipe cards are designed with around a dozen horizontal lines going across them. Try to choose cards that also have lines on the back to provide you with more space. A good rule of thumb is to use the left side of the card to create an ingredients list column. The right side should be used to make a second column that lists ingredients. In this way you simplify the preparation process.
Recipe cards come in all varieties of colors and designs. Traditionally, they have had fairly tacky simple line art, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Many modern recipe card designs have become their own art form, with ornate paintings, drawings and even photographs. Whichever you choose, try to find ones that allow for plenty of space for writing, with a simple interior that won’t make your writing hard to read after years of use. The artistry of the card should be most pronounced around the borders.
Before the numerous online recipe sharing sites sprang up, the recipe card was the traditional method of sharing favorite recipes with friends. These cards are seeing a popular resurgence, as the hand-written instruction carries a warmth and personalization that simply can’t be duplicated with a “submit” button.
If you are like many family cooks, you have a collection of hand-written cards handed down from previous generations. To ensure they survive to see the next generation, look into recipe card protectors. These plastic slips are very inexpensive, and for a few pennies you can save a priceless written heirloom.
Organizing Recipe Cards
There are two main ways to organize your recipes. We'll go over recipe boxes and recipe binders next.
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We've put together a complete guide to organizing your recipes the old-fashioned way--with paper:
A. Recipe Organizer Overview | B. Recipe Cards | C. Recipe Boxes | D. Recipe Binders (coming in Feb 2019) | 5. Conclusion (coming in Feb 2019)
We've put together a complete guide to organizing your recipes the old-fashioned way--with paper
We're giving away our top 100 recipe cards that we sell on our website for free for you to print. You can even type in them and save them for later (use Adobe Acrobat Reader to save).
Why? We're grateful for our long-term customers who have always supported our small business, and we also hope you might decide to buy one of our recipe card divider sets, recipe card protector sets, recipe boxes or recipe binders as a means of saying thanks. If not, that's ok too. We're just passionate about recipe cards, and we want everyone to be too! You can always go to Shutterstock for corporate recipe card designs you have to sign up for, but we decided to go with styles you'll like at no cost and no obligation.
But you said there were 400 designs? Oh yeah, if after looking over these designs you still want more, just keep scrolling down. We've curated 300 designs from all over the internet.
What's the catch? There isn't one, really, except that the below designs are for personal use only, and cannot be used for commercial purposes. So just don't print and sell them and we'll all be happy. :)
Erin & Ted
Founders
Cookbook People
Personalized Recipe Binders - Buy Online Here at Cookbook People
There is no simpler way to track a favorite recipe than the recipe card. A deceptively simple rectangle of paper, the modern recipe card is the ultimate low-tech tool for saving and sharing recipes for current and future generations. Thanks to the internet, there are also now a variety of free options for creating beautiful recipe cards that will do your recipes justice.
1. Recipe Card Sizes: There are generally 3 sizes of recipe cards to consider. The 3x5” card is the standard card for most of the last 100 years. (Our own 3x5 recipe cards can be found here.) The old recipe card boxes they fit into were designed for America’s small kitchens. As kitchens expanded, so did the capacity of recipe boxes and binders to allow for the now standard 4x6” recipe card. (Our 4x6 recipe cards are here.) The vast majority of all current recipe cards are this size. In the past decade a few brands have expanded to 5x7” recipe cards. (Ours are here.) You may want to avoid these, however, because while they may fit your own binder they may not fit a friend’s binder you wish to share with.
2. Recipe Card Layout: Most recipe cards are designed with around a dozen horizontal lines going across them. Try to choose cards that also have lines on the back to provide you with more space. A good rule of thumb is to use the left side of the card to create an ingredients list column. The right side should be used to make a second column that lists ingredients. In this way you simplify the preparation process.
3. Designs: Recipe cards come in all varieties of colors and designs. Traditionally, they have had fairly tacky simple line art, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Many modern recipe card designs have become their own art form, with ornate paintings, drawings and even photographs. Whichever you choose, try to find ones that allow for plenty of space for writing, with a simple interior that won’t make your writing hard to read after years of use. The artistry of the card should be most pronounced around the borders.
4. Tradition: Before the numerous online recipe sharing sites sprang up, the recipe card was the traditional method of sharing favorite recipes with friends. These cards are seeing a popular resurgence, as the hand-written instruction carries a warmth and personalization that simply can’t be duplicated with a “submit” button.
5. Protecting: If you are like many family cooks, you have a collection of hand-written cards handed down from previous generations. To ensure they survive to see the next generation, look into recipe card protectors. These plastic slips are very inexpensive, and for a few pennies you can save a priceless written heirloom.
6. Organizing Recipe Cards: There are two main ways to organize your recipes: recipe boxes and recipe binders.
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