Today I scanned recipes my Mother had given me over the years, many are so discolored I will have to fill in what the ingredients are.  But you know, I enjoy the off-color patina that has come from age.  My children grew up enjoying the cookies, cakes, and other goodies made from these recipes, and fondly remember their Gramma whistling while she baked cookies.  She wasn't a very good whistler and her lips had pretty deep lines from the 88 years of puckering out pretty songs, but I love thinking about the why behind those lines, you know? 

This year, I'm compiling copies of Mom's recipes into small books, and will give each of my grown children one as a Christmas gift. 

One of Mom's recipes is for Tomato Soup Cake, yes, made using a can of condensed tomato soup!  (I wonder if Andy Warhol ever heard of this?)  Well, in any case, here it is — you can see how paper was saved, as there was another recipe written on the back of this one.  A side note:  I actually made it recently and it is quite good;  If I make it again I'll reduce the cloves to 1/4 teaspoon.

So on with the story.

I want to use cardboard for the recipe book covers, and since I'm a painter, I thought about wrapping the cardboard with canvas, but since then, I've decided to try using brown paper bags.  I've soaked paper bags for other projects, and/or squirted with water, then ironed the paper, applied stencil, stamping, words with colored pencils and paint sticks, all to embellish the paper.  Overall it's a very satisfying process. 

Mom used to save string, so I must incorporate string somehow.  She didn't throw a thing away, and when she had brown paper bags, she used them.  I remember well wrapped Christmas gifts using the wrong side of the bag so the advertisement on the bag didn't show.  I also have pictures to include with this book.  Wish me luck as I am going to work on them now!

And in the meantime, while I'm working on the books, why not enjoy a cool video called The Creative Spirit:  Bookmaking.  Enjoy!  and please let me know if you make the cake?
Made by
SandyCarlson
March 18, 2007