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Pre-Chanukah Projects… Day 4

Okay, so what's on your menu? Ours grows and changes each year but a couple of things are staples for the party day. Oh, we're having a party. Did I tell you that yet? Yes we are. So I've got lots to do people! And one of the things on my list is the MENU. So anyhoo, we always make potato latkes because my hubby grew up Ashkenazi and well, its just not Chanukah without latkes! I keep trying to just toss some hashbrowns from a box in the oven, but he just won't go for it. Okay, fine. But he did NOT grow up with sufganiyot (not sure why unless his grandma just didn't like jelly donuts). I found a recipe for those several years ago using biscuit dough (!!!) so those are EASY and QUICK and oh so very yummy! This year, I am also going to make bimuelos, which are a Sephardic Jewish tradition and in english, that means HONEY PUFFS. All I had to do was say the word HONEY and my hubby decided this was a good addition to our arsenal of Chanukah yummies. I keep telling him we're Sephardic despite his Eastern European ancestors. We love ALL Sephardic foods. Go figure.

But now I'm going to tell you a secret. My recipes are a disaster. They are all on different pieces of paper, small, large, printed from the internet, ugh. Makes me a bit nutty thinking about it and every year, I have to dig through the pile to find the Sufganiyot recipe and I lost and found the bimuelo recipe THREE times before I decided to solve the problem, once and for all. I created a Chanukah recipe book AND I included blank pages so it can grow later! AND I made all of it into templates for YOU to download as well! So here goes nothin' baby! And um, if you ask really nicely, I will do another one for Passover because God only knows where my chocolate matzah recipe has run off to.

So first, you need recipe cards. But I have issues with recipe cards. They're usually not large enough and without a picture, I don't know what I'm cooking. So... my cards each take up a whole letter size piece of paper, with room for a 4x6 photo at the bottom and all your recipe info at the top. I tried to give you plenty of lines for ingredients, although I KNOW the instructions section might be a bit small. Hopefully, these will work for you. So, after you download the free recipe cards, print however many copies you want. There is a left and a right, so you can put these back to back inside page protectors. I highly recommend the page protectors because this will be in the kitchen, after all. So print them and slip them in the page protectors. If you really don't have enough room on the card for all the directions, you could finish on the back of the card and then pull it out and turn it over while you're cooking. The inside of your Chanukah recipe book is ready for your recipes.

Please, do not right click and save this image. Its small for the web and will absolutely NOT give you a nice print for your book. Please DOWNLOAD HERE to get a full size image for your project!

Now, the outside of your recipe book is really up to you. I made mine with a digital kit that is coming out in my store next week and if you PAY ATTENTION, you can get the entire kit for free. You just won't know how to do it until the first night-ish of Chanukah so you have to keep coming back to my blog.

Anyhoo, I printed a paper from my new kit. I have a 12x12 printer so I printed it full size. If you don't have a large format printer, just print it on letter paper and use that to decorate whatever you want to decorate. I printed mine on smooth white cardstock, 2 copies - one for the front cover and one for the back cover. I adhered those on chipboard to make my covers a bit more sturdy. I then printed 2 copies of a second paper from the same kit and adhered those to the insides of the front and back covers.

I am a big believer in using up your stash. Really. So I dug through my alphas and found the insides of the Tattered Angels Natures Beauty Chipboard Alpha (the outside is gorgeous butterflies) to add the word Recipes. I used Adirondack Color Wash in Denim and Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Blue Skies to "paint" them. I adhered them with Zip Dry Paper Glue. I didn't have enough of the letters to spell Chanukah (not enough H's and no A's left in my stash at all) so I used Photoshop to print the letters in a cursive print on one of my kit digital papers, printed it on white cardstock and then cut it out. If you have a Cricut or similar, you could print the paper and use your diecutter to do this. I don't have one anymore so I made do with handcutting. I added a few more little embellishments and now I'm supposed to show you my recipe book. Guess what? It got ruined by a glass of raspberry crystal lite which honestly, did not belong anywhere near my craft room. Sigh. I'm sorry, you will just have to trust me. It was cute. And the good thing is, I have the recipe cards so I can make it again. I would love to see yours!

I hope you're enjoying all my Chanukah preparedness posts, please leave me some comments so I know someone is reading! And really, PAY ATTENTION... there's a good chance you're going to get a freebie next week!

For ANOTHER Chanukah idea (or Christmas because I made two versions), check out my post at Scrap N'Art today. Holiday music can be annoying, or it can be wonderful. The best way to make sure your holiday music is exactly what you want it to be, is to make your own playlist and then pop it on a CD to listen to wherever you go. Okay, you IPOD people, I know it could be even easier than that, but in my car, I need a CD, so there. And of course, you should make the CD as cute as possible to bring extra happy holiday cheer to yourself and your loved ones. Check these out!