My friend Diane has an annual cookie exchange. Every year I’m like, “UGH, I don’t bake, I’m just going to come and not make cookies.” And every year Diane and my other friends don’t stand for that, and have brutally forced me to make cookies. This year was the first year I didn’t complain about making cookies – Mike’s little kitchen dare has made me much more comfortable baking. But shhh, don’t tell him that.

For the cookie exchange I had to make cookies for eleven people, and include recipe cards. Every year in the past my recipe cards have looked awful…like, hand scribbled, illegible. But not this year! I was looking at the HP Handmade pamphlet (SO MANY RIDICULOUSLY CUTE IDEAS) and I saw a link to a recipe card template. My love of templates is well-established. The thing I liked the most about these templates is they included a place for a picture. So, armed with my marshmallow recipe and my food photography tutorials (here and here), I got to work.

First, I took pictures of my marshmallows. I made two kinds: vanilla with candy cane pieces, and s’mores. I put my mini Christmas trees in the background to make things more festive, and turned on every single light in my kitchen since it doesn’t receive any natural light.

vanilla candy cane marshmallows

S'more Marshmallows

Next, I picked my template and typed in my recipe.

making the cards

I look really short in that picture.

The template was really easy to use -I was able to adjust colors, fonts, sizes, and uploading an image was a cinch. To put the picture in the template, I just dragged and dropped. SO EASY.

When I was ready to print I made sure to put my settings on 4×6 photo paper.

finished recipe card

My finished cards look great. I decided to print them on 4×6 matte photo paper with a tab.

S'more Marshmallows

candy cane marshmallows

I punched a hole in each recipe card so I could tie them to the boxes my marshmallows were in.

punching holes in the cards

This is why I used tab paper – the hole is punched in the tab, and then the recipients of the cookies can just pull the recipe off the tab!

ready to go

The finished product! I am super-happy with how they turned out, and all my friends were impressed with how they looked. They were NOT expecting something so nice-looking from me!

By popular demand, next week I’m posting my holiday photo checklist. Just in time for Hanukkah and Christmas!