Magical Holiday Home

How do you like to organize your holiday recipes? A binder? Card file?  Digital format?

For years I used both cards and binders. Recently I have tried to eliminate cards and keep most of my recipes in binders.  I have a special binder for Christmas but I also have Family Favorites binder, Fall/Winter binder and Spring /Summer binder.  I find that these four can pretty much handle the recipes I have. I have another single binder that is a reference binder for my cookbooks…it has pages that list favorites fron my books and which book and page they are located on.

The main problem I have is there are not enough days to make all of the recipes that catch my eye. I have had to become ruthless…if I make a recipe and it is just so-so….OUT goes that recipe….it is discarded because there are so many more that can take it’s place.

Here’s a roundup for those that like to use recipe cards…

HERE

Tie that Binds

Sweet Art Boutique

May is recipe month here at Magical Holiday Home and there’s plenty to do with recipes!  You can set up or organize your Christmas recipe notebook or you can select recipes for your dinner parties and December meals!  Gather up all those loose recipes and let’s get them organized. You can also browse through cookbooks and create a favorite recipes notebook as a reference for your cookbooks so you can easily find the ones you want without searching through all those books!

I hope you had time this month to at least “think” about your holiday dishes and holiday kitchen! Today relax and enjoy a little Rudolph Day fun…

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I thought today might be a good day for a tour of some Christmas kitchens….

First up over at Simply Sweet Home I found a super sweet tour from 201o. I love the decor and the color scheme.

Next….this darling 2011 kitchen over at Imparting Grace.

This FABULOUS yellow holiday kitchen can be viewed at It’s Overflowing. There’s alos a great free printable of the Let It Snow art.

 Another holiday kitchen to see is over at Designs by Pinky.

There are lots of good tips about organizing the kitchen for the holidays. Check out the kitchen prep week over at Organized Christmas for some great ideas.  Holiday Grand Plan Kitchen Week is HERE.  Houseworks Cooking Space Week is HERE.

I’m confident if you follow either one of them you will be on the road to success. Sometimes I tweak things a bit or add my own little spin to them such as:

•  I set up cabinet “stations”. A baking station for storing the ingredients as I buy them for holiday baking because I usually wait until the week before Christmas to actually bake. A party station to store any goodies and supplies I am putting together for either our brunch that kicks off the season or our Christmas Eve dinner. A bar station with alcohol or other drink mixes. To make room for these stations I purge and get rid of anything that I can and put the rest of the items in a plastic tote in the garage till after the holidays.
• Prior to Thanksgiving I give the pots and pans base cabinet a good cleaning and replace any items that may need to be replaced. OUT with the old IN with the new.
• I bring some of my holiday dishes into my main cabinet. These are usually in the bottom of the china cabinet but I bring out enough for at least our daily use.  That way we can use these fun plates through out the season not just for brunch and Christmas Eve.  I also get out some holiday glasses and mugs. The season is too short to not enjoy all of the neat stuff I have.
• I do a quick update of spices and discard any old and replace them with fresh. If your spices are outdated they don’t really serve the purpose!
• I make a list of holiday food ingredients that we enjoy. For example the ingredients for Almond Tea and then I stock up on them so we can enjoy little holiday treats throughout the season.

The holidays are smoother and so much more enjoyable with a little organization! I sometimes start as early as the end of September preparing the kitchen for The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

 For a GREAT tour of a Christmas Kitchen check out Sunny Simple Life. I love how she brightens her kitchen for Christmas…so cute!

I shared with you my Cinco de Mayo plates earlier and here’s a pic of the cabinet I cleared out to store them in as well as some other “fiesta” colored dishes. The are stored in my very old hoosier cabinet. This is the left side of it. The right side is where I stoe my white dishes! I really am in the mood to do more entertaining and use some of my fabulous plates.  I have a great collection of white plates and now I have some fiesta ones. I also have fish plates for a summer/beachy theme. And my newest goal is to collect some Rudolph plates to use each Rudolph Day. I, of course,  have Christmas dishes too!

It’s never too early to plan your fun!  Memorial Day is just around the corner! What are your plans to kick off the summer season?  Check out these FREE printables for Memorial Day fun!  HERE.

Or how about some BBQ ones..HERE……what fun summer brings our way. Thanks to Oh How Posh for adding such delightful tidbits!

Photo from Be Cool Be Positive.

Today’s feature is red and gold tablescapes. The one above is from HERE.

This one is from Swede. It’s a little too busy for my taste but it does have a certain appeal.

Love this one: HERE.

I decided to host a little Cinco de Mayo celebration this year since it is on a Saturday. It’s a good time to use the great margarita glasses I bought at 50% off after Christmas!  i love them because the storage box has little individual slots to store them in…safe and sound…just waiting for a party! Then I was at Dollar Tree and happened upon the lovely orange, green, and yellow plates shown above. They also had bowls and cups to match but I really just wanted the plates!  I think they will set a GREAT table!  For the price they can’t be beat!

I picked up 12 plates and I’m thinking the orange and yellow would also make nice fall place settings!

Look at this colorful and pretty table from The Style Sisters

Most of it is created with Dollar Store finds and Walmart plates! Style on a budget. This would make a delightful summer party setting or a little girls birthday!

Do you love party themes as much as I do. If so….how about a beach party theme?  These free printables are adorable and available HERE.  Enjoy and thanks so much for the creative people who make these items available to us!

Love these holiday silverware holders….what a cute addition to the holiday table. HERE

Another neat one HERE.

These were orginally a MarthaStewart idea made from fabric but this creative blogger decided to use scrapbook paper. They are still cute and with all the paper choices out there you could find something to match any theme. I found these at Free Scrapbooking Tips.com

Love this simple but oh so special setting over at Cozy Cottage Cute.

And this one over at Red Hen Home

There’s a great post over at The Thrifty Groove about packing up your holiday dishes. She even puts a picture on the box…what a clever idea!

This picture over at IHeartOrganizing gave me another idea or two. First of all she used some lovely labels but I was thinking that if you used sort of a library card pocket you could stick the list of what the tote contains down inside the card holder!  Second of all I love her idea of using ziploc bags inside the totes to keep items together and organized. I have always used them but not to any great extent. The go on my list for home organizing!

I’ve written a post over at RudolphDay.com that might be of interest to you. Check it out!