The Chaos of the Pinterest Recipe Board (and How to Control It)

I don’t think any cookbook can possibly compare to the wonder of the “Food & Drink” category on the addicting site that is Pinterest.  It’s way too easy to log on for an allotted time of 10 minutes to look up some recipes for the week and end up spending 2 hours drooling over the images on my computer and writing down the ingredients so I can get everything I need at Walmart to have a recipe frenzy over the weekend.  However, after trying out some recipes and liking many and discarding a few, the “Recipes” board starts to get longer and longer.  Eventually you don’t know which ones you have tried or which changes you have made.  It becomes a patchwork quilt of confusion and frustration when you are trying to find a recipe again.  So what can you do?

                Many of you have probably read various posts on how to make recipe binders and I’m not trying to make a repeat of another one of those.  I want to share with you an entire SYSTEM of my own  (which includes a binder) that has revolutionized the way I plan recipes and keep track of them.  No longer will you have to deal with struggling to find a recipe on your Pinterest board again!  And your binder will only contain recipes you have ACTUALLY tried and love enough to keep.  For those of you who do not have a Pinterest account, just skip over the steps that talk about dealing with boards on Pinterest.

The “Love It!” Recipe System

Step One:  Create Separate Recipe Boards  (optional)

                Some people prefer to put all recipes on one board, and others make a board for each category of food.  Either way works fine – it is whatever works best for you.  But in addition to whichever method you chose, you also need to create a new board called “Recipes I’ve Tried” or something similar.  This is the place where you will move recipes from your other boards once it has been tested out.  This step is not completely necessary and I will tell you why – after testing a recipe out, 75% of the time I add or change something about it and therefore the original recipe page will no longer reflect my changes.  However you can make notes in the description section of a pin, so this could work either way.

Step Two:  Purge the Pins!

                On your recipe board(s), go through all of your pins and move any of those that you have tried to the “Recipes I’ve Tried” board (again, optional) . Your goal is to only have recipes you have not tried left on your food boards.  Get rid of any pins that don’t look that appetizing anymore or pinned to the wrong board (not optionalJ).

Step Three:   Gather Supplies for a Recipe Binder (don’t run away now!)

                This may seem to be the most daunting part, but I found it to be my favorite! There are many many ways to design and organize a recipe binder and it is totally up to you as to the layout you want.  But here, I’m going to share the step of how I made mine.

                First I bought a 2” white binder at Walmart. You want the kind that has the plastic pocket on the outside so that you can place paper inside the covers.  You will also need some photo sheet holders which can be found here.  These hold  (3) 4x6 photos plus a smaller pocket. For some reason, these can be a bit tricky to find in stores. Next you need some regular office sheet protectors like these.  Avery is usually a good brand for these.  If you don’t have any recipe cards or note cards, be sure to grab some or order some online.  If you plan on putting tabs on the side of your binder, get some of those as well.  Lastly, pick up one of these 3 ring pockets that you usually see at back to school sales -  I use this to keep recipes clipped from magazines to try later in, but if you prefer to keep them elsewhere that is fine.

Step Four: Decide On and Design Your Binder

                Plain white binders just don’t seem to cut it for me but I’m not exactly a graphic designer either.  Thankfully I stumbled upon Rita’s blog called “Pink Polka Dot Creations.”  She is AMAZING with computer-made art and she has an entire post full of printables for your own recipe binder you can find right here!  Awesome,  right?  I love how she even makes a blank page so that you can use Photoshop or another program to create your own categories!  This is what I did because I wanted my words all horizontal instead of slanted.  And just so you know, the font is called “Girls are Weird” and you can usually find fonts for free online to download and use in your word processing software.  She also has some tabs you can print out to use. 

                Decide on the categories that work best for you.  Here are the ones I use in my binder.

                                Appetizers, Dips, and Snacks

                                Breads, Biscuits, and Muffins

                                Breakfast

                                Cakes and Cupcakes

                                Cookies and Bars

                                Drinks and Beverages

                                Hints and Tips

                                Holidays

                                Main dish

                                Miscellaneous

                                Other Desserts

                                Pasta

                                Salads

                                Sauces, Gravies, and Condiments

                                Sides and Sandwiches

                                Soups

                                Themed Foods (such as all racecar or princess for birthdays)

The hints and tips section is a great place for me to paste magazine cutouts of "how to" things such as carving a turkey or decorating a cake. 

Step Five:  Put it All Together

                Time to assemble your binder!  For the front cover, I pasted the art on a dark red cardstock that was cut to the binder size.  Then I put a plain red piece in for the back cover.

                Next put your category dividers into their regular protective sleeves and place in alphabetical or “order of meals” order.  If you are using the 3 ring pocket for magazine clippings, put that in the front of the binder.

                Place 2-3 plastic photo sheets between each category for starters.  Add more as needed.

                Before each category page, place a regular sheet protector and put a plain white piece of computer paper in it.  This isn’t really necessary, but it makes the pages look neater as you browse through the book (see below).

                By now your binder is probably getting pretty thick already!  Add tabs if desired to the edges.

Notice how you can see the next category in between the recipe cards?
I thought that looked kind of odd, so adding the white pages at the end helps.

Step Six: Actually Putting Cards Inside!

Now that your binder is ready to go, it’s time  to start cooking! (or maybe it’s a good idea to add all of your current favorite recipes first).  Before copying down all of your recipes on 4x6 cards, let’s decide on a few things first.  Do you want pictures of the finished product on the card or do you want the pictures in that little extra pocket at the top?  Maybe you don’t need any pictures at all.  I used to put the pictures in the top small pocket but now I have decided to leave a 2x2in square of space on the right side so that later I can either print a pic off at home or put 6 smaller pictures on a 4x6 white template and get them printed at Walmart. 

  I have also started to put small “identifier” icons on my recipe cards.  So far, I put snowflakes on the side if it is a freezer meal or a crockpot on the side if it is a crockpot recipe.  This allows me to easily find a recipe based on the time I have to cook.  Maybe you could draw a picture of a clock on the side to say that this recipe is quick to make.  Personalize it as much as you wantJ  I put 2 cards per slot so that both the front and back have a different recipe, but again it is up to you.

You may notice, especially if your recipe cards have that slightly slippery covering, that the top cards can fall out if you tip the binder upside down.  Wouldn’t that be a disaster! ?  I have not had much trouble with this but you may try mini paperclips on the top of each slot to keep the cards in.

Step Seven:  Get Cookin’

                Okay so let’s quick go through one way to actually use this recipe system with a scenario.  You find a recipe for Lemon Bread on Pinterest and pin it for later.  A few days you come back to get the recipe and try it out.  During the baking process, you decide that the bread needs more sugar.  (Either make a note on the recipe you printed, on a sticky note, or on the description section of the pin). After eating your creation, you decide the recipe is worth keeping.  Now you move the pin over to your “recipes I’ve tried” board.  At this point you can either make the recipe card and place it in the correct category and add to googledocs (see next step) , or save that task for a later date (which I often do). If the recipe was a complete flop, simply delete it from your original board and do not make a card for your binder.  Personally, I keep a chip clip on the fridge and place “keeper” recipes there until I have time to write them all down on cards.

                If you don’t use the small pocket on the photo sheets for pictures, you could also add your favorite quotes or maybe even family photos to really personalize your binder.

Step Eight:  Set Up Your Google Docs (optional)

                This may sound crazy, but I’ve worked so hard to gather up all of these recipes so far that I would hate to lose them due to something such as a house fire, flood, etc.  But the biggest benefit of putting my recipes online is to always have them available to me whether I am visiting family far away or at home.  On my Google drive, I created a folder called recipes and in the folder I made separate folders for all of the exact same categories in my binder. (I didn’t both making one for the hints and tips – typing those up from magazines would take WAY too long).  Every time I add recipe cards to my binder, I also add a separate document for each recipe on Googledocs.  I find it easiest to copy the recipe from the website to save time, and then make any changes as necessary.  Googledocs automatically saves as you go so there is no need to hit the save button!  So if ever I have to start my binder over, I will at least have the recipes to go from.  There are other programs you can use instead of Googledocs.  You can even use Pinterest instead and make your changes to recipes by adding to the description section later.

Whew…well I hope that was a bit clearer than mud for everyone.  I’m not the best at writing out instructions but if you have any questions, please ask!  This system has worked great for me so far and I love not having to keep a bunch of cookbooks around.  Does anyone have any improvement ideas or systems that already work great for you?