Bitty Bag Recipe Binder

I have a little bit of a preoccupation (obsession seems like a strong word, no?) with mini binders. The kind that fit 5.5 x 8.5 paper. I even bought a 3-hole punch just for that size of paper. Maybe it's because anything "mini" is somehow cuter - schnauzers, ponies, babies . . . you know.

I'm not an avid cook or anything near that, and many times when we do cook, we look the recipes up on our phones. But still! That hasn't stopped me from wanting to re-organize our recipes. Right now, there are some in recipe cards in a box, some printed on regular printer paper, some torn out of magazines, and others still in an Excel spreadsheet. I wanted to, for the things that we most commonly make, consolidate the recipes into a mini binder, and I decided to use laminated Bigger Bitty Bags to divide up categories of recipes.

The recipe binder turned out just how I was envisioning in my mind (maybe better?) with the laminating of Bitty Bags and all - holla! We all know that sometimes projects that sound/look really good in concept don't live up to the vision.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Trim Bigger Bitty Bag down to fit 5.5 x 8.5 binder. In my case, I chose to trim the width to 5.75 inches and the height to 8.625 inches. I trimmed down the left and top sides.
2. Trim 8.5 x 11 laminating pouch down to fit Bitty Bag, with a small border to spare. In my case, I kept the laminating pouch at 9 inches wide and trimmed the long edge down to 6.25 inches.
3. Stamp recipe categories onto Sweet Sticky Labels. Adhere to Bitty Bag.
4. Run the Bitty Bag with label through the laminating machine.
5. Trim off excess lamination. Trim the top down to the edge of the Bitty Bag. This creates a pocket where you can tuck in collected recipes (dual purpose divider and pocket!). Punch hole with 3-hold punch sized for 5.5 x 8.5 binder.
6. For the front cover insert, I followed the same steps, except I only laminated one side of the Bitty Bag (no pocket).
7. Print out recipes two to a page (you can select how many pages to print on a sheet from the Print Preview screen). In my case, I opted to create a standard format in Word for the recipes I wanted to include (mostly things that we have made before that we will make again).

See this project on the Whisker Graphics blog here: Bitty Bag Recipe Binder

SUPPLIES:

Paper: Whisker Graphics Diagonal Striped Bigger Bitty Bags
Embellishments: Whisker Graphics Sweet Sticky Labels
Stamps: Elle's Studio Cameron alphabet stamp set
Tools: Laminating machine and pouches
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black ink