A great gift idea for cooks

If you love to cook, here's a great DIY gift idea for you. It's a cookbook website that lets you compile and print a cookbook for only $10.95. I included a link here.

My friend and colleague, Angela McRae actually clipped the info out of a Woman's Day magazine for me, thinking I would be interested. She was right. I think it's a great idea.

After exploring the website, I saw some drawbacks -- for me. Mainly, I would want to create a cookbook of my own recipes or the recipes handed down from my family. With this online cookbook maker, you have a section of recipes you must choose from Woman's Day recipes. Now I am not putting down their recipes, but I usually am more excited about Martha Stewart's or Southern Living's recipes.

Also, the 8 1/2 x 11, softcover book is more of a booklet because you can choose only about 20 or so pages, then you have about half that many pages of your own. If you go over the page limit, you will have to pay around a dollar a page more and the price can mount up very quickly. But if you want to give a personalized book with recipes and include a few of your own, this would be great.

I did find the prices were hidden in the site and I had to jump through hoops to find out what the prices were. If I seem a little vague about pricing, I thought they were, too. You do have the option of working on it, saving it and going back to it, so you don't have to do it all in one sitting. You can also upload some of your own images. I just don't really like having to use their recipes.

After that, I googled "make your own cookbooks" and found another site, based in Atlanta, called "Create My Cookbook." I have a link for you here. I plan to use this site in the near future to create a cookbook of my own. I am not sure I will have time to make my cookbook before Christmas this year, but I am thinking of making cookbooks for gifts next year, or even during the year.


On this site, you can create a cookbook from 6 to 100 pages for $19.99 and it is all your (or my) recipes. You can go back to it and take all the time you need to finish it up. This is a spiral bound book with a wraparound spine and they mention how it has protection from spills. You can use their stock photos or upload your own. I really loved this site and I am going to use it as soon as I can. I think it will be a great way just to organize my recipes.

There is a hard cover version for $34.95 but I think I would start with the spiral bound version. I really need to see what one cookbook looks like before I put very much money into it. I also liked the fact that it looks like you get a price break on 20 or more cookbooks, but I don't know what the break will be. I must contact them first. I will let you know how it turns out and I appreciate Angela for finding this great do it yourself project.