Cake & Candles

Cake & Candles is the birthday magazine: sixteen pages and thirty-two photo slots, so every guest, every game and the cake from three angles all get in. It is for a child's party, and equally for a fortieth or a seventieth where the family wants a keepsake for the person and a copy for each table. The kids style gives warm cream pages, coral accents, Josefin Sans headings and rounded corners on every photo. The cover is a full-bleed photo with the name and the age over it. Then the pages run: a photo with a caption and date, a four-photo grid, two side by side, a full-bleed, a five-photo collage, a polaroid, another caption page, a second grid, two stacked, a six-photo contact sheet, a framed portrait, a photo with a journal block for the guest list or the wish, a final full-bleed and a quote page for the birthday message before the back cover with its small photo. Use the grids and the contact sheet for the guests and the games, so no one is missed.

Group shots belong on the full pages and the caption pages; single faces in the small squares. The journal page is a good place for the menu, the playlist or the messages people wrote in the card. Thirty-two photos is a lot for the free tier's sixteen pages, which is the point: dense pages make a small book feel generous. Plain 120 gsm paper on an inkjet is fine; the rounded frames hide slight duplex offset, so this is a forgiving first booklet. Print a copy for grandparents who missed the party.

Printing this booklet means two pages per side on both sides of the sheet: 16 pages is 4 sheets of A4 or Letter, nested and folded to A5 or half-letter. If your printer duplexes, use the flip-edge setting shown on the download card; if not, print Side A, reload the stack and print Side B, and run the free one-sheet test page first so you learn your printer's flip before spending photo paper. 100 to 120 gsm matte paper for the inside, 160 to 200 gsm for the cover if your printer's bypass tray takes it, and score the fold on anything heavier than 160 gsm. Two staples on the spine with a long-arm stapler, or open a normal stapler flat over a folded towel. The template uses 32 photos across 16 pages.