Organizing recipes.

Piles of stuff that have no home stress Matt out.  When he finally gets fed up, he shifts the stuff from one place to the next.  It still doesn't get organized, but piling the piles on top of each other makes Matt feel somewhat better.  Me?  I have selective blindness.  If something is out of place and there isn't anything I can do about it in the moment, I block out the mess.  It's like it doesn't exist.  And I go on with my day.  Nearly seven years into marriage, Matt is still completely bewildered that I can walk past the same pile of clothes nine times and not notice it.

I do have my limits, though.  For example, recipes.  I have a nice little collection of cookbooks but in reality I get many of my recipes from the internet--blogs, websites, emails from friends.  I like to hold recipes in my hand, take them to the grocery, write on them, splatter tomato sauce on them, so I print the recipes.  And since I don't have an effective organizing system for my recipes, they end up in piles that Matt shifts from place to place.  Eventually I throw them away, and the next time I want to make Jessica's Italian Beef or Pioneer Woman's green beans or Vanessa's hummus, I reprint the recipe ... and it starts all over again.

#27 of my 101 in 1001 list is: Make a recipe binder to organize recipes.

No ordinary binder will do, it has to be unique and creative.  I shopped for a cool recipe binder, but couldn't justify spending upwards of $20-$30 on something that I would just end up covering with greasy fingerprints and soup splatters.  Lucky for me, I stumbled upon the Prudent Baby blog, along with their free, downloadable recipe binder art, available in a variety of colors.

My mom has an awesome color printer (I have a color printer but it's not so awesome) and printed these out for me on white cardstock.  You need to print both the cover and the corresponding spine label.  I used a one-inch binder, which fits the small binder spine.

Add some tab dividers so you can keep your recipes organized by category ...

and lots of clear sheet protectors to protect your recipes from cooking messes ...

and you're all set with a super cool recipe binder that you made yourself for only a few bucks, instead of thirty.

I think one of these would make a unique, thoughtful, and budget-friendly shower gift, birthday gift, Christmas gift ... just tuck in a few of your favorite recipes that the gift-recipient might find tasty.

If only there were such a fun project to help me keep my clothes closet organized.