If you are making appliques out of solid fabrics or all over designs and do not need to be able to see through the template inorder to fussy cut your fabric, your cheapest template is cardboard. If you need to see through it, almost anything stronger than paper that is transparent will work.If you're making templates that are not one quilt only, but ones that you want to use over and over, then real template material is probably the best and it is so easily cut, doesn't turn yellow with age and won't curl when stored flat. Unless you are making a lot, a sheet of template plastic is not prohibitive in price. You can also use plastic carpet protectors, the ones that are sold by the yard at Home Depot. However, they have a texture that may be hard for some to compensate for.