Best gift I gave this year!

I'm SO excited to share this with you! I gave special Christmas gifts this year to my mother and grandmother that I just loved, and so did they :)

I'm sure you're not surprised to find that I come from a family that loves to cook. My grandma Bobo is particularly good and has been whipping up dishes for many, many years. I have talked about her and her recipes before in this post. After observing around her kitchen, I noticed that she stored her recipes in large plastic baggies. A very antiquated system, if you ask me. And, I know she had trouble finding things!

So, I enlisted the help of my talented friend, Michelle, at my office. She's an art director with some serious skills!

Using Zazzle.com, she was able to fully design and upload artwork for 3 different 3-ring binders for my Grandma to store all of her recipes in. Aren't they pretty!!!??

Each binder is customized with her lovely name :)

I filled them with page protectors, and made dividers to break up all of the many food categories.

I even told Michelle about a color scheme to match my Grandma's kitchen, and she did a perfect job!!

The very best part was giving them to her!! She was shocked and so excited.

We proceeded to spend over 3 hours at her kitchen table sorting through all of her recipes and putting them into categories. She has a mix of magazine clippings, hand-written notes on the back of things, recipe cards, etc. So, it was really fun to sit together and go through them. Eventually, I'd like to help her type up her favorites and make a hard-bound book for the family. But, one step at a time! :)

But, I didn't stop there. I wanted my mom to have some, too!

So, Michelle made a second set in colors to match Mom's kitchen! I love them!!

This one is my favorite.

No wait, this one is :) Ahh, I love them all! Don't they look cool when lined up together? I love the spines! I am thinking I'll have Michelle do a set with lots of red with my name on it, because I SO need some, too! 

Good news for you, friends..... My talented friend Michelle has the ability to make this available to you on Zazzle. She is in the process of uploading her artwork files so that anyone can get their name on the above designs. Here is her 'store'-zazzle.com/msimkin+gifts There is already one binder up, but more are to come! How exciting is that!? Or, you could chose from one of the many other designs that other artists have added. But, I'm personally partial to these!

Isn't gift giving fun?