My entry for Cricut "Cropping with the Stars" contest

Family Recipes Book

I created this book as a birthday gift for my oldest daughter who will be turning 20 on January 19. She also moved 1,500 miles away this month, from Florida back to Massachusetts. I wanted her to bring a little bit of us with her, and remembering how often I called my mom after moving out to ask her how to cook EVERYTHING, I thought I would help her out.

The book was created using just the "From my Kitchen" Cricut cartridge, with some of the additional lettering done with "Simply Sweet" and "Hannah Montana" cartridges. Because the contest rules stated the project had to use cartridges released in 2009 ONLY, I could not use my "George and Basic Shapes" or "Plantin Schoolbook" cartridges as I normally do to create the base pages. Instead I turned to the "hide contour" feature in Design Studio and used the shift/tabs feature with the fish platter index tab on page 68 of the handbook, hiding the inside rectangle.

Each page was created welding the shadow of the selected image to the shift/tabs , cutting them out from heavy white cardstock and then adhering the image onto the cut pages.

The book was held together with 2-piece steel fasteners (compressor and base, 1 inch capacity – available at office supply stores), and I used ordinary 4" x 6" index cards for the recipes. By using the steel fasteners, additional pages can be added behind each section divider page.

Sections include: Soup and Sauces, Pasta, Beef, Pork, Poultry, Seafood, Cookies, and the last section has the phone image (pg 28 in handbook) followed by a pocket page to hold take-out menus - I'm sure she'll use this section the most :).

On the inside front cover I adhered a measurement conversion chart and on the inside back cover I cut out "I'm only a phone call away" using my "Simply Sweet" cartridge.

She loved the book and now I just have to put all the recipes in it and mail it to her.

Thanks for looking and...

Happy crafting,
Barb!