Vintage Recipe Box Makeover

by: Chica

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Jo recently spent a Saturday at yard sales and found a cute little recipe card box for fifty cents. She knew I needed a new recipe box, and even though this one wasn't my style, she saw the makeover potential right away. Turns out it's a fairly well-known vintage Lerner recipe box with faux carved wood, and they are readily available for purchase on eBay.

I knew a coat of paint was all this box needed, and when it came to choosing a color, I looked to my favorite kitchen accessory for inspiration. I had found this turquoise cow-shaped creamer pitcher at a yard sale last year, and it makes me smile every time I walk past it in the kitchen. I chose the perfect shade of multi-surface paint in Coastal Waters so that I could repeat this same pop of color elsewhere in my kitchen.

I started by painting the inside of the box with several coats of multi-surface paint in Cotton Ball white.

Then I painted the outside with a couple coats of the turquoise.

Look how pretty! I just love this color, and now I love the recipe box.

But you didn't think I was going to stop with just a coat of paint, did you? To make this box super useful, I designed some recipe index card dividers to match. If you want to use these cards in your recipe box, just download our free recipe index cards printable.

I printed the cards onto white cardstock, then ran them through my thermal laminator machine before cutting them out. This will keep them clean and crisp as I flip through them repeatedly over time.

I made cards for every category I could think of, plus some blanks in case I want to write in new ones later.

Then I got some standard 3" x 5" index cards and started copying over my recipes. I started with two of our favorites, my Pumpkin Maple Cupcakes and Jo's Butterbeer.