Merry Christmas to My Gourmet Group

I couldn't post this any earlier because two members of our group are crafters and visit this blog frequently. I didn’'t want them to see their gifts ahead of time! We had our gourmet group Christmas dinner last night and exchanged gifts, so now I can share the idea with you.

This was a BIG project and one you could put together throughout the year; so plan ahead. Our "What’s Cooking" cookbook has 35 pages of photos and recipes gathered from the four couples after our monthly dinners since last December.

I made a tabbed section for each couple. That's Joyce and David's index page in the photo. The photo on the right is Grilled Stuffed Jalapeño Peppers. Yum! The covers and index pages were laminated; and then the book was spiral-bound.

I used Times New Roman font in 12 and 14 point size so that the cooks could easily read the recipes as they dash about the kitchen glancing back and forth at the directions.

Each book cost about $4.50 to make; but also a lot of love and effort. Our friends were delighted and I'm sure the cookbooks will be well-used.

I first typed the recipes in Word. Some I was able to copy and paste from my friends’ e-mails as they shared their recipes. I could have printed the pages right from Word but wanted more design options, so I finished the books using Adobe Photoshop CS3.

To create the "From the Kitchen of" seal with the crossed forks, I used Scrap Girls' Layer Your Own Worn Seals Brush Set designed by Brandie Valenzuela. Then I applied one of Cheryl Barber's Fancy Metals styles (also from Scrap Girls) to give the seal the gold embossed look.