No I didn't have a template - I sort of just did it as I went along. I wasn't sure how to do the folds for an explosion card, so I did a google search and found out how to do the folds. From there I folded a test piece of paper, knowing I wanted a shape for the explosion and not just a square I used my CM heart template and traced that onto the folded triangle. I cut out the heart shape and then when I opened my test pattern it looked like the shape that I wanted. I thought I had saved the fold instructions but couldn't find them on my computer. So I copied a link to a website above that has a pdf on how to fold an explosion card. Hopefully that will work...I'm new to posting stuff so I haven't figured out how to post the actual pdf that I saved. If this doesn't work I can email you the pdf of the instructions - you can use any shape template then to cut out your desired shape. Hope that helps!