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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Card Box

One of the things I am really going to try to do in the new year is to gt my cards to people on time! I have gotten better about making the cards and having a "stash" of ready made cards, but they often arrive just a little late. To help with my organization problems, I decided to put together this box. I started with the photo storage boxes from Hobby Lobby, just the plain black boxes. I wanted to decorate them with my own paper since I wasn't crazy about the colors they had to choose from. (Enabler alert: these boxes are on sale half price this week). I just used some paper that I believe is from My Mind's Eye to decorate my box. Since my box is black, I used black construction paper and the Sizzix Twang alphabet to punch out the letters to label the box. I didn't take a picture of the inside, but the boxes come with index cards and I used the Card Categories from Clear Dollar Stamps to make my index labels. That is a really great set, it comes with 33 different categories for you to use. This is also the project that we will be making for craft night at church on Friday night.

Since I mentioned my marathon cooking session, several people have asked me to let them know how it went. I actually had four freezer, cook one day eat for a month type of cookbooks already. I decided to go with the 2 week plan to start since it is normally only the two of us eating dinner, but we still wanted to have leftovers to use for lunches. I decided to use the Frozen Assets Cook for a Day Eat for a Month book by Deborah Taylor-Hough. There were a couple of reasons that I decided to start with this one. The first one being that a friend had given me a couple of recipes to try and I enjoyed them and they tasted good when they were thawed and served. Another was that the recipes seemed to be a little more economical than the other books I have. Here is a picture of my fully stocked freezer:

So we are set for a while! It was a long day of cooking but hopefully I will be able to really notice a difference during the week when our schedules are more than a little crazy. That's pretty much everything I made, except the soup that is in the refrigerator. I do have a couple of suggestions if you want to try this:
1. See if your library has some books for you to look through so you can get an idea of the recipes, but the one I mentioned above is my favorite. There is also a Lite and Easy book with the same name that has different recipes.
2. Start with the two week plan.
3. Buy aluminum foil even if you think you have plenty!
4. Read all the information before attempting to cook. I am a fairly experienced cook and have made Thanksgiving lunches to feed 200+ and dinners to feed 40-50, but cooking like this was a little different and it helps to do everything in the order that it is laid out in the book.
5. If you have a small family separate your meals before you freeze them to keep from eating the same thing for three or four days.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions!

6 comments:

Dru said...

Good ideas, both of them. I like to cook ahead also - it sure is nice when time is short or life is crazy. Take Care, Dru

One Creative Life said...

The card box it a great idea. I have one that is over-flowing! :) Need to mail some out.

I also do a lot of cooking/prep ahead of time. It really does help out. Another thing I like to do is keep a nice stack of recipes that I can whip up in 10-15 minutes or crock pot recipes. It also helps to keep the panty stocked with items you use all the time. Hope those meals make your life easier. Happy New Year!

Kipinski said...

mmmmmm..... freezery goodness.

Anonymous said...

Such fabulous ideas..you are so organized. wow!

Unknown said...

Okay, I have never heard of cooking for one day and eating for a month!!! I've heard of eating for a week. I have got to check out that book you are talking about. I bet you would save a lot of money too by buying meat and such in bulk. You'll have to let me know how everything turned out.

Love how you personalized your box. After reading Nichole Heady's blog I just HAD to redo mine. LOL!

Unknown said...

This is a great idea. It is also a good way to take food to someone with a long term illness or can't cook for themselves. I like to take a hot meal and a frozen meal so they will have dinner and another meal when they are ready to eat it. TFS!