My SO Cute Recipe Box!

Happy Friday everyone!  Too bad I have to work tomorrow.  So I found such  a cute idea for a recipe box on Cleverly Inspired's Blog.  I have so many printed out recipes laying around the house and stuffed into my cookbooks that I needed a recipe box anyway.  I don't know about you, but to me, the best things that can be passed down through generations are recipes.  I especially love when people hand-write their recipes for me.  Seeing recipes in my Granny's and my mom's handwriting just brings back so many memories.  What I loved so much about this idea is that Tracie used her mother's handwritten recipes to make such a personal, sentimental recipe box.  I HAD to make one for myself.  So, I headed to Michael's and stocked up on all my supplies. 

This box took me a couple of days to make, just because I've been kind of busy and just worked on it when I had a few minutes to spare.  It turned out great!  I will tell you how to make one, but first, look at what I decided to whip out (I'm boycotting the weather!):

That smell just relaxes me and puts me right into fall.  Love it.  Anyway.  Moving on.

I started with a cardboard recipe box that I found at Michael's (in the unfinished wood section- they have cardboard stuff too).  I bought some red acrylic paint and painted the whole outside of the box and let it dry overnight. 

While the box was drying, I dug out handwritten recipes by some of my favorite people:  my mom, my dad, Aunt Peggy, Granny, and Aunt Sis.  Then, I made copies of them on my printer/copier and used cool-shaped scissors to cut out random sized pieces. 

The next morning, I glued on the recipe pieces randomly.  I painted Decoupage glue on the back of the paper with a paintbrush and smoothed the paper out as I placed it on. 

After I was satisfied with the way the box looked covered in the recipes, I painted on a coat of Decoupage glue to seal everything.  I painted it over the whole box with a sponge brush.  ***Be careful not to glue the box shut!  I almost did!***  I did 2 coats, letting it dry about 20 minutes in between coats. 

Once the box was completely dry, I got out my new toy!!!!

Heck yeah!  $2.49 at Michael's!  I love this little booger.  Anyway.  I used the hot glue gun to glue some (caaauuuute) ribbon around the rim of the lid. 

When I was at Michael's getting all of the supplies for this box, I found some adorable recipe cards (from Paula Deen!) for 50 cents a pack.  So I scooped up a few of those.  But for the life of me, I could not find recipe box dividers.  So I decided to make my own with some brownish-gold cardstock (looks like a paper bag in the picture, lol).  I measured the size of the box and cut out a pattern, then made 10 dividers. 

Then glued on some more of that cute ribbon! 

And now I have myself a way cool recipe box!  The hard part is going to be copying all of my hodgepodge recipes onto the cute cards.  I did a few today.  It's going to take awhile.  But the box looks perfect in my black and red kitchen!  Yay! 

If anyone has a recipe to add to the box, send it to me!  :)