Family History Project: Family Recipe Scrapbook (Part 1)

I was a co-host for my sister's bridal shower for my family this past April. We had a recipe-garden themed shower where everyone who came to the shower was supposed to bring a copy of their favorite recipe. There were about 15 attendees, all relatives.

During the shower my sister tried to guess who brought which recipe. If she guessed right, the owner of the the recipe card received a gift. Gifts for winning the bridal shower games included cookbooks and gardening tools.   Another game consisted of each guest writing down their birthday and anniversary.  The person with the birthday and anniversary closest to their wedding date received a prize.  (We kept the birthdates and anniversaries to add to my sister's address book).  After we had lunch, we had all the guests write advice for the bride on the back of the recipe card.

Our favors were tulip bulbs planted in white clay pots with a message saying something like, "watching their love grow". The pots were wrapped in cellophane and tied together with a ribbon. Attached the ribbon was a plantable seed card that was specially ordered online. The seed card had a blue bridesmaid dress with my sister and now husband's name and wedding date. When you plant the seed card, wild flowers will bloom. Similar to this, only in our case, the dress was blue:

I collected the recipe cards and advice and created a Family Recipe Scrapbook that contained a page for each recipe, a picture of the person that brought the recipe along with their words of wisdom for the bride. Due to space constraints and some messy handwriting, I typed the recipe cards on my computer. I saved the original recipe cards as a reminder of all my relatives' handwriting. I also purchased recipe, family, and flowery themed scapbook paper and stickers. I created word art on my computer and used other wordart and graphic freebies I found online.

Although I do a lot of digital scrapbooking, this was a traditional paper scrapbook. I even recovered the album I purchased with fabric and ribbon used at her wedding shower. On the last page of the book I added an extra invite from the shower and an extra seed card from the shower favors.

The book took a long time to put together, as I wanted the book to be perfect.

Three months after my sister's wedding, I finally finished the book!

I'm going to scan the book so I can make a copy for my mom, me, and my relatives for Christmas.

After I give my sister the book, I'll post pictures on my blog.

This was a great current "family history" project, bringing new recipes for the bride, and pictures and memories of relatives. I would highly recommend doing this project!