Use Your Creative Juices to Preserve Delicious Memories with a Recipe Scrapbook

What do you see, smell, and taste when you think about Thanksgiving with your grandparents as a child? What about the Father’s Day cookouts? Easter Sunday or Christmas Day? Every family has their traditions and, hopefully, yours are like mine; filled with many wonderful memories!

In addition to the many family traditions that get passed down, most families have certain recipes that are favorites from generation to generation. Some of my FAVORITE recipes are ones that my mom, Mary Anne Wilcox, always said, “Well, I don’t have that one written down but all you need is this-and-that and a little bit of this…” No measurements! UGH! Luckily, my mom did teach me how to make her mac-and-cheese, corn pudding, and of course, ORANGE ADE.

Family Recipe Traditions

Orange Ade is a serious one to my side of the family and one that my husband always has made fun of! He thought it was the weirdest thing when he celebrated with our family and ORANGE ADE was the drink of choice for almost everyone around the table. Mom always made me and my little brother, Nathan, chief orange ade makers. She taught us how to ROLLLLLL DOZENS of oranges to make them soft enough to slice, then squeeze enough orange juice out with lots of pulp to fill about a quarter of a LARGE pitcher with pure juice. Finally, we added water and lots of sugar to make the DELICIOUS counterpart of LEMONADE, only with oranges. Do you have any idea how many oranges this takes? Can you even imagine what a pain sifting through the juice to remove all the seeds might be? At first, I know Nathan and I loved doing this job but as the years went by, we soon realized how our mother really had suckered us into making this APPEAR like a fun job when really it was BRUTAL! (A job, by the way, that I made Nathan’s children and my children do together once we both had families of our own!)

So, what is YOUR Orange Ade in your family? I’m sure you have many foods that when you think of them, make you think of someone’s hands preparing them with so much love. You may remember what they wore when they prepared it. You may see little hands trying to taste it before going into the oven. Food is so important to our family’s make-up but yet our recipes seldom make the family photo album.

My Recipe Scrapbook Inspiration

My oldest daughter, Zoë, has never developed a love for cooking and it is her that was my inspiration for this blog. She is an ER nurse in Arlington, VA, and this past Christmas, she had to work and was unable to come home for the holiday. She called freaking out because at work, everyone was bringing a dish and she needed help on what the heck she could fix! After us discussing how to make Aunt Debra’s macaroni and cheese, it occurred to me that my girl Zoë is going to get a GIFT this year! And I thought maybe some of you had a sister, daughter or son, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, or someone else extra special that you would love to help keep YOUR family recipes alive with!

My vision is for these books to be MORE than just the recipes in your own handwriting but one where you include pictures of the dish. Perhaps family pictures around the fire pit sampling that special dessert. And even better, what if YOUR orange ade story that pops in your head every time you fix your favorite dish is shared along with the recipe and the photos. That, my friends, will make the most amazing family keepsake!

I have helped many clients do a simpler version of this idea over the years but my girls were so small then and I never thought to do ones for them at the time. I can’t wait to get started on this project that will be a work in progress. I may plan to make more than one at the same time so that both of my girls can have one. I want it to be super meaningful and I’m going to take the whole year to make it. It will give me the motivation to surround myself with special people and my favorite recipes all year round.

Making a Recipe Scrapbook

I will probably do mine using the Happy album because that size will allow me to be able to include more recipes and more stories! The 8×8 size works great too, but remember, the covers for those albums are seasonal so get your pages now and when the album covers are released you can grab one then. Our page protectors which come for free with our pages will keep your recipes safe from spills too! Try also our lined paper for writing on. You can write the recipe on the paper and then trim it to the exact size you need.

I hope that this gets YOUR JUICES flowing too. Why not use this year not just to create one of these books but to teach new little hands HOW to create your favorite dish alongside them. Times like that are priceless and capturing those memories will make them FOREVER.

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Thanks so much for reading. I appreciate you so much. May your 2022 be one amazing year and may God bless you on your journey.

Blessings,
Beckie Belote

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About Beckie Belote

Beckie Belote has worked in direct sales for more than 20 years helping other women live more creative, meaningful, and fun-filled lives through scrapbooking workshops and retreats. As a Creative Memories advisor, she also helps her teammates across the country to build successful businesses. Becke is a cheer coach and part-time teacher. She lives in Newport News, Virginia with her husband, has two amazing daughters, two rotten dogs, and one bird.

About Creative Memories

Creative Memories offers you ways to enjoy and share your photos with friends and family through do-it-yourself scrapbook albums as well as Fast2Fab quick and easy albums. Shop CreativeMemories.com to find bookcloth scrapbook albums, seasonal embellishments, unique border makers, and more.