November Pandoras meeting

At our Pandoras meeting on Monday, we worked on these cute recipe folders made from altered brown paper grocery bags. This project is based on one by Jane Bradley that my friend Michele had seen at the Believe in Yourself Retreat. You can see Jane’s finished recipe folder on her flicker site. Mine (above) is still in progress.

This is the front of mine (so far). We took the brown paper grocery bags, cut them apart at the seam, and then spritzed them with Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels to create a bit of texture. You can purchase it online at Fiber Art on a Whim. Then we folded up the bottom to make pockets on one side, folded them accordion style, and stitched the pockets up on a sewing machine. After that, it was time to decorate! I used some of the white paper spritzed with the Glimmer Mist; I always go for bright colors, so I wanted to cover up some of that dull brown paper.

Michele starts gluing embellishments on her folder.

Here you can see some of the chipboard embellishments (spritzed with a purple Glimmer Mist) on top of the brown paper bag, which has the outlines of other embellishments that were placed on top before brown mist was applied.

DeLane peruses some of the ephemera Michele had gathered for us to use.

She used some of it on her folder. 

Grace cuts a shape out of paper out for her folder.

Looks like she is searching for a little time to cook!

As always, we were surprised to see how different our projects turned out, even though we were all working with the same raw materials. We each brought a dish to share for lunch, and recipe cards for our contributions to put inside our folders. 

This was a fun project. I think it would be great to make these folders for your children or grandchildren and put important family recipes inside. You could embellish them with copies of old family photos, and even photocopy old recipe cards in the family members’ own handwriting, if you have them.

It is always such a pleasure to be creative with friends. I am so fortunate to have good friends that enjoy trying new art techniques together!