Personalizing Paperweights with Text: A Family Recipe with Grandma's Photo

Many families have recipes that have been passed down from mother to daughter (or son) for two or more generations.  They're often written on index cards with corners and edges that have been lovingly worn and tattered throughout the years.  Some have been stained by a drop or two of vanilla, or even scorched from a slight mishap.

These written family treasures are often stored in a recipe box or scribbled on the inside cover of a cookbook.  This design idea, following my series on personalizing paperweights with text, will turn  timeless recipes into beloved keepsakes.  Adding a family photo will make your paperweight even more special.

Here's how I made it...

I used the Large Rectangle Paperweight Kit for this project because it has a generous display area that measures 4 1/2" x 2 3/4".  Granted, not all recipes will fit into this space.  You can edit the text of your recipe to shorten it.  You can also experiment with fonts, font sizes, and different layouts.  Still, a recipe with many steps will be a challenge.

The layout for the design was created using a simple publishing program called Microsoft Publisher.

I started by drawing a box that was slightly larger than the measurements of the Large Rectangle's display area.  This was easy to do using the program's ruler feature as a guide.

The text of the recipe and the ingredients were typed into separate text boxes so I could position them independently.  After moving them around a little, I decided the best fit was to place the instructions on the left and the ingredients to the right.  The font (Times New Roman) was sized to 9pt which was still very easy to read.

The photograph was added to some blank space above the ingredients.  To make the title of the recipe stand out, it's in a larger, red typewriter font.  I also added a vertical, dashed line in red to separate the two columns.

ADDING A BACKGROUND COLOR

I wanted to include an alternate version of the same artwork to show you how a few simple changes can dramatically transform the look of your design.

The alternate version has a blue background, white text, and white lines.  Everything else is exactly the same.


PRINTING

I printed my artwork on premium photo paper using my inkjet printer.  I used the best print quality setting possible.