Looking for inexpensive recipe box
September 24, 2013 1:44 PM   Subscribe

I'm going to give a collection of my recipes to a number of people this Christmas. I've not had any luck finding an affordable, plain vanilla, box (made of any kind of material), to hold 3" x 5" cards. By affordable I mean under $10. I'd like these boxes to match my old wooden recipe box which is the standard 5.5"w, 4"h (including lid), and 3.25"d. If I can't find such a box, the alternative is to make my own. Again, there's a dearth of information online about how to do this, especially for a box of the above dimensions. Does anyone know of such a product or DYI info?
posted by partner to Food & Drink (10 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
How about this box?
posted by exogenous at 1:51 PM on September 24, 2013


this

or

this
posted by mollymayhem at 1:52 PM on September 24, 2013


These would generally be called just a "recipe box" -- Amazon has a few option:

This one, which is my favorite but is $15
This one at $12.50
This one (available from its real retailer here -- search for recipe box, along with a slightly different version) which you'd probably want to finish yourself, but is well within your price constraints.

Etsy also has many options -- I limited the search it to handmade (so you could get multiples - but warning that this criteria is wrong a lot) and $15 or under. If you can find one that's close maybe you can talk to the seller about tweaking it to be right (or negotiating a volume discount).
posted by brainmouse at 1:53 PM on September 24, 2013


Etsy! Also antique malls & flea markets. I'm part of a local barter page on facebook too, where people are very crafty & woodworky.
posted by headnsouth at 1:53 PM on September 24, 2013


If you're located in the US, Michaels Crafts sells plain (balsa?) wood recipe boxes you can decorate yourself.
posted by Mchelly at 1:53 PM on September 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


This one might work nicely -- it's under $4 but shipping for one is another $5 (when you buy in a large quantity, shipping goes down substantially). I can't vouch for the quality of the item, unfortunately.

These are black plastic, plain as can be, $5 and will ship for free if you buy five or more.
posted by kate blank at 1:54 PM on September 24, 2013


Have you tried Michael's or JoAnn's Fabrics? I know they have unfinished hinged boxes - they probably have the proper size.
posted by sleepykitties at 1:54 PM on September 24, 2013


All the dollar plus stores around me have recipe boxes of various qualities. The plastic ones are sort of ugly but handle exposure to water and liquids.
posted by Mitheral at 2:57 PM on September 24, 2013


I'd suggest taking a stack of cards and wandering around your local container store, trying things out. There could be some clever plastic versions of what you seek. Office supply stores have them too. Also, not even sure if it still exists, but Cost Plus World Market used to have tons and tons of interesting and affordable boxes of kinds.
posted by AnOrigamiLife at 3:31 AM on September 25, 2013


I've found nice boxes at garage sales and thrift stores, for way under $10.
posted by simongsmith at 4:04 PM on September 25, 2013


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