Creating a Family Recipe Scrapbook

So many of my favorite memories revolve around food:

• “rooting in the candy cupboard” at Grandma’s house
• sitting at the 50s Formica table sampling Great-grandma’s egg custard
• learning fractions with Mom using recipes to make math more fun

Many of those memories found their way into a recipe scrapbook that I gave to my Mom as a Christmas gift a few years ago. The book highlighted the women in my family (they do most of the cooking!) and the recipes that tell my family story.

The Project Overview: No Photoshop Required
Each page or two of the book was dedicated to a different woman beginning with my great-grandma and ending with my niece and nephew. Okay I cheated a little and included a couple guys: my nephew and my brother. Here’s a look at the elements I chose to tell each of their stories.

Family Photos
I scanned in my favorite family photos and printed them out so that I could cut them out in interesting shapes. Color photo copies would have worked too. I’m not fabulous with Photoshop so I did everything “old-school” scrap-booking style.

Recipes
I also scanned in some of our recipes, like the old ones in my great-grandma’s handwriting. I typed up other ones that weren’t so visually interesting.

Heirlooms
Family heirlooms made up the other major visual element . My sister and I each photographed things we had inherited that were iconic to us, things like Great-Grandma’s china, a Pillsbury DoughBoy doll, and the plastic Kool-Aid Cho-Cho-Cherry mug we used at Grandma’s house.

Stories
Written memories along with the visual ones accompanied each section. I typed up a little blurb including favorite food related memories.

Including the Kids
My sister staged a photo shoot with her kids (Mom’s grandchildren) baking. We included a “recipe” that my niece wrote in her 6-year-old handwriting. Of course, the kids didn’t know why they were doing it because kids have a hard time keeping a secret.