Grandma Collins' Cookbook
To celebrate my grandmother-in-law's 90th Birthday, I collected some of her most beloved recipes and photos and organized them in a professionally published and printed book to give to each of the family members.
The colors, theme, and flower motif for the design of this book came from the famous Turtle Cookie Jar that I heard my husband and his cousins talk about long before I ever was able to visit and see it. This adorable vintage cookie jar is synonymous with Grandma Collins, her baking, and her hospitality, caring for so many of them after school with a smile and a treat.
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Using textures from kitchen materials like laminate, linoleum, recipe cards, and cardboard, I layered these pieces with family photographs to create a scrapbook-like design. I traced the flowers from the turtle's belly and placed them into Illustrator to turn them different colors and use them as a motif throughout. I was even able to get a hold of some of her original recipe cards and painstakingly browsed handwriting fonts to pick one as close to hers as possible.
front & back covers
The turtle, of course, became the image for the cover. I made a watercolor painting of him for this, and we were only too amused to discover on her birthday that he was different colors than he used to be! Grandma Collins is known to repaint all the decorations in her home, and even the cookie jar wasn't spared!