Making Your Own, Personalized Valentine's Day Card

We all know that dinner will be expensive, roses will be outrageous, and gifts are a given. But what about cards? Who would have thought about that? Getting a nice Valentine's Day card can run you $5 to $6. If you give your significant other one in the morning and one with her roses and one at dinner, this can add up to almost $20 after taxes. I will teach you how you can make your own special personalized card that will look better than the store bought kind and will be a lot cheaper as well. All you need is a computer, some pictures -preferably digital and some nice paper.

If you do not have a digital picture of you and your sweetheart just get a regular one and get it scanned. You can do this at your local library as a lot of them have scanners free of charge to use. Now that you have the digital picture, you need some nice paper. I thought you said it was going to be cheap? A ream of nice paper costs way more than $5! No worries, just head on down to your local Xerox place such as Kinko's. They usually have paper samples and will sell you some nice paper for under a dollar. I like to pick out a nice parchment looking resume paper, something like an ivory or marble looking one. I can get a few sheets for a dollar so.

Start up your computer and open up Microsoft Publisher. If you do not have this program you can use the local library's computer free of charge, just get a library card - this is free as well. The only thing they will charge you for is printing, usually a dime per sheet. So now that you have Publisher opened up, open up the "card making" section. Pick out a style that you like and click and drag all the elements off the page and add your own. Drag the picture on to the front of the card and title it with something else like "Happy Valentine's, Lisa!" If that is your significant others name. Replace the words on the inside with something romantic that is special to her. For example "When we met at Joe's Party that night I knew you were the one," or something to that effect. Just be sure that it has meaning.

You no longer need to spend all that extra money on cards that will eventually get thrown out. You can make it more meaningful and special by using your creativity and heart than your wallet. You can make as many of these cards as you want at a fraction of the cost of a store bought card. Once I made five of these and left them in my fiancé's car, with her roses, at work, at dinner and one more at home. Needless to say she was the happiest I had ever seen her. You too can see your love this happy. Make it happen today.