wedding gifts: a personal touch

Two of my dear friends are getting or already got married this month. One was last weekend and the other is this coming weekend. I bought them each gifts off of their registries, but decided to get a little creative with part of their presents.

When Ty and I first got married I had no clue what I was going to make for dinner every night. I would spend hours surfing through allrecipes.com. I eventually built up a binder of tried and true recipes mostly found on websites. Now, I have my favorite recipe blogs to supply me with new, scrumptious recipes. I got married right after college graduation, so cooking every night was new to me. (I lived in a sorority house for two years with a cook and only one semester on my own in an apt.)

I thought I would pass something similar onto my friends, Joy and Kelsey. I took a white binder and made inserts for the cover, sides, and back with their new monograms. I printed all my favorite recipes and put them in sleeves to protect them while cooking. I also wrote a few notes on some of the recipes and included a letter to each friend at the front of the binder. I hope this is something that they can get good use out of and add new recipes to it as well.







I forgot to take a picture of Kelsey's before I gave it to her, but this is what her front cover looked like:


I have already had one friend tell me that she wants one of these for her wedding. ha. I hope that these binders help them create lots of happy memories in the kitchen.