My cute mom is a self-proclaimed klutz. As in, move so quickly, you accidentally throw the cook book in the oven with the meal, type-of-klutz. On the plus side, she gets many things done, quickly. Well, the cook book thing has happened more than once. And even when it doesn’t, it ends up looking like this:

messy-cook-book

Who can keep a cook book clean? Who can keep anything in the kitchen clean? Especially with kids. Got me thinking. What about an indestructible recipe book? Made out of metal? With the recipes you use most, since those are the ones that get the messiest. Problem was, a recipe book made by a metal manufacturer with engraved pages was going to run me $300+.

What to do? In addition to speed, my mom also taught me some other skills: spending wisely and creativity. So I made a plan. Lots of things are made from metal. Every day at the store and around my house, I brainstormed. What is made of metal that I can print on? It took a while, but I found it. Soda cans. We can do this.

1. Cut cans (carefully!) into metal sheets. They need some coaxing to lay flat. Rub them and squish between books.

recipebook01 recipebook02 recipebook03

2. Order stickers from a sign maker OR buy clear stickers you can print on your own printer OR write on them with a sharpie. I did the first.

recipebook04

3. Apply stickers to metal. I used a little water and squeegeed it out, so they could be bubble-free. Mine came with a sticky tape on top that helped with application, then peeled off.

recipebook05 recipebook06

4. Trim with scissors or with a paper-chopper or with a knife and cutting mat. I used a paper chopper.

5. Round corners with a corner-rounder or scissors. I used scissors.

6. Punch holes with hole-punch. I made a paper template and lined it up with the metal sheets.

7. Buy Rings to hold pages together.

8. I purchased 2 thicker metal plates for the covers from a local trophy company. There were about $8 each.

9. Put pages together and slide rings through holes.

recipebook-finished recipebook-finished2

Please ignore the smudges on the final product. The pics were taken after a few uses. I made this in June 2013, and so far, it has survived! I tested one page in the oven. It smelled bad, but survived 4 minutes at 400 degrees. I imagine a sharpie would last even longer.

recipebook-burned

Hehe. Happy indestructible recipe book day!

Love it, want it, don’t want to spend 5 hours making your own? Give me up to 15 recipes and $150 and I’ll make one for you!

$150

Indestructible recipe book

One Response

Leave a Reply

%d