How To Create a Kids Recipe Book Template

Camps, daycare centers, churches and schools looking for a great project to introduce kids to the world of publishing while creating gifts for moms can't go wrong if they produce a cookbook authored by kids. Putting together this type of project can be labor-intensive, but it's so much fun, you might decide to have the kids make other books once you get the hang of the production schedule. The backbone of a recipe book is its page design. Once this has been accomplished, you can place the actual recipes on each page. Follow these tips to design a template, then finish up the project in style with added tips to take you through completion of this limited edition cookbook.

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Card stock
• Stapler
• Crayons or paint
• Computer
• Scanner
• Software
• Printer
• Camera

Instructions

1. Use a digital camera to take a photo of every child whose work will appear in the cookbook. For an extra touch, put a chef's hat on each child before taking the photos. Save all of the images as jpegs and transfer them to your computer.

2. Open a new 8.5-by-11-inch vertical (portrait) page in a word processing or page layout program. Set 2-inch margins on all four ides of the document. Drag or place a text box in the center of the page that measures 4.5 inches wide and 7 inches high. Select the box and use the pull-down menu to place a frame around the box.

3. Print multiple copies of this template page. Instruct each child to use crayons or paints to decorate the two-inch border around the square. Their recipe will fit in the center box after their border has been completed. Encourage them to draw pictures of ingredients that went into their individual recipes.

4. Scan each of the finished templates, tagging each file with the artist's name. If you are comfortable working in Photoshop or another image manipulation program, color correct each page of art to pop the contrast.

5. Open a new document in the same page layout or word processing program you used in step 2. Figure out how many pages the cookbook will be. You'll need one page for each student's recipe, a table of contents page and one or two authors pages.

6. Complete individual cookbook pages by importing each child's recipe into the template she created. Fill the 4.5-by-7-inch center area with text. Adjust font sizes to accommodate the length of each recipe.

7. Ask each child for a sentence that describes his recipe, or have all of them dedicate their recipe to a parent or friend. Set up the authors section by importing or inserting the head shots and placing them on the left side of the page. Post each child's comments or dedication next to their picture.

8. Hold a cover contest. Have everyone submit a design for the cookbook cover, then have the class vote on the best one. Alternately, let all of the children help design the cover if the group is small. Scan the cover art and import the jpeg into the cookbook file.

9. Print cookbook covers on heavy card stock. Output enough complete sets of the book's contents so each child has a copy. Print extras for proud grandmas and retain samples for your files. Staple each book together along the left margin.

Tips & Warnings

• Celebrate the project's end with an authors party featuring some tasty food.

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish