How to Create an Email Valentine Card

Create an email Valentine's Day card to send to someone special.

Express your love and devotion next Valentine's Day with a card you make yourself using a special photograph. Using a graphics program, you can add a heart-themed border to your photo and then add a special heartfelt message to the card. When you finish your digital creation, send it off by email to your beloved for a memorable Valentine's Day surprise. The exact steps to complete and send your card will vary slightly depending on the graphics and email programs you're using, but they are fairly similar in most such programs.

Things You'll Need

• Graphics program
• Digital photograph
• Email program

Instructions

1. Open your graphics program and create a new background layer to begin creating your card. Choose File > New and make the background layer six inches wide and four inches high.

2. Choose File > Open to open the photograph you wish to include on your card. In the dialog box that appears, navigate to the location on your hard drive where you store photographs and highlight the photo you wish to use. Click Open to open the photo within the graphics program.

3. If necessary, resize the photo to make it fit into the background layer. Copy the photograph to the Clipboard and then paste the photo as a new layer onto the background layer. (Select Edit > Paste As > New Layer.)

4. Create the border for your card. Click the Preset Shape tool and browse through the assorted items available for creating a border around your card. Often you will find frames and borders available to add to layers using this tool. Look for something that will fit with a Valentine's theme, such as hearts. When you find a shape or border you like, select it by clicking it with your mouse. Position your cursor in the upper-left corner of the layer, hold the left mouse button down and drag the mouse around the edges of the layer to create the border.

5. Add text to your card. Select the Text tool and then select a font, a font size and a font color. Position your mouse where you wish to add the text on the photograph and click once to make a text box appear. Enter the text you want to add to the card---Happy Valentine's Day and Be My Valentine would both be appropriate. Add your name to sign the card and then press Enter to make the text appear on the card.

6. Look over your card to make sure it looks the way you desire.

7. Click Layers > Merge All to merge all layers into one flat layer. Choose File > Save As to save your Valentine's Day card on your hard drive. In the dialog box that appears, name the card and click Save.

8. Open your email program and create a new email message. Position your cursor inside the body of the email and click Add Picture. Navigate to the location where you saved the Valentine's Day card and click on the card's icon. Click Open, and the card will open automatically in the body of the email.

9. Add whatever message you wish to write in the email and, when you're finished, click Send.

References

• Corel: Express the Feelings of Your Heart Through a Warm E-Card