Super Frugal, Yet Meaningful, Wedding Gift

Friends of ours recently got married, and we were delighted to be invited to be part of their special day. Unfortunately, what we wanted to give and what we could afford to give were at opposite ends of the monetary spectrum!
I got to thinking what would I have found most useful as a new bride...... easy recipes! (Bass is giving an amen to that since he had to teach me how to cook spaghetti. I was all over boiling water and making toast though. I had me some skillz! Just sayin')

Over the 11 years that we've been married, I've collected and refined recipes that are well within my cooking comfort level. They were all a mess though: magazine clippings, stained cards, and handwritten gobbledygook. With a wedding gift in mind and my 7 year olds request for me to "give her all my good recipes someday", I started typing.
A few hours and a template in MS Word was all it took to transform my mess into a great archive of usefulness.

 

I found a super cute photo album at AC Moore and bought it with a 40% off coupon. I also found a wood clothespin at Michaels for $1. Using my Nana's Kitchen (DCWV stack) scrapbook paper, I made a little insert for the photo album cover, and I covered the clothespin. Then I used my Cricut to cut out "spicy" and "sweet".

 

A few coats of Mod Podge sealed it.

I sorted the freshly printed and typed recipes by category and put them in the album. I also used the Stampin' Up round tab punch to create category dividers. I just used a little ATG tape to stick them to the middle of the photo album page.

A quick card, wrapping paper, and bow, I had a wedding gift ready to go.

(Hint: I always try to wrap my card inside the package for a wedding or shower. That way there's no chance of it coming unattached and lost.)

 

This gift was definitely a labor of love but now I have all the recipes stored in the computer for future weddings (or for my 7 year old) and I got to update my recipe book too.

Linkin' it up here!