Printable stationery items can be customized on your computer to include names and text of your choice. This further enhances and personalizes the item. All you really need (besides your computer) are scissors, a craft knife, a steel-edged ruler or guillotine, glue and printable paper or cardstock.

Here are suggestions for making stationery that is a pleasure to receive:

• Craft a card. Make use of printable cards offered online. They are a good investment, as they can be printed out repeatedly, while costing the same or less than a card bought in a store. You can build up an occasion library to be used repeatedly

The quality of modern desktop printing is fabulous and can be further improved by using photo or speciality papers. Printing, cutting and folding a printable card is super easy and much quicker than walking or driving to a store – and ecologically much sounder.

Alternatively, you can use colored cardstock as a card base. Then embellish it with printable pictures for a quick and pretty card. Also use those bits of ribbon off cuts and odd buttons.

To make it more special, you can make a dimensional cover. Raise some of the pictures by using the little sticky foam squares made for 3D cards.

Use inserts that are a bit smaller than the card for inside messages. This can be loose, lightly glued on the spine, or tied in with a ribbon which looks very pretty. The insert can be in a color that coordinates with the printable on the front cover. It can also have a miniature of the cover pic, as well as a printed message or poem. (I suggest you always sign your name in ink though. Having all the text in a typographical font would be too impersonal.)

Another alternative is to lay out the card as a quaterfold card. This makes the inside of the card part of the sheet the card is constructed from. It also allows a card to be constructed from paper only, because the double fold makes it sturdy. The page (A4 or letter size) must be divided into 4 equal areas. Keep important info away from the edges and floating within each quadrant. This is because the slightest shift when printing can throw designs with frames and straight lines off-center easily. It is not really noticeable if a free-floating design is a smidgen out of line.

• It is easy to make a postcard in the same manner, but you might want to enclose it in an envelope to protect your creation.

• Use printable frame designs to make cards personalized with photos. The photo must be in a layer under the frame in your graphics program (e.g. Photoshop). And the inside of the frame must be transparent for the photo to show.

• If you need to share a fair amount of news, make printable notelets. You can fit two notelets on an A4 or letter-sized page in landscape format. Border designs look pretty at the top and/or bottom. A vignette can be placed in the center top. Your address can be added as a long row below the pic, or to the left or right.

• Embellish a printable or plain white envelope with the same or matching graphics. Put the address in a frame graphic and use a picture as a seal on the back envelope.

• Consider making a modest little card-and-gift creation. The gift can be a printable bookmark, a tea bag or coffee pod in a mini envelope, a packet of cocoa or a flat scent sachet.

The beverages imply that you share a cuppa with the recipient, while the bookmark and scent sachet will remind your friend of you when she opens that drawer or the book with the bookmark. A gift card from a store can also be included and is a nice way to avoid buying, wrapping and sending a gift in a parcel.

• Round out your printable stationery range by using a personalized postage stamp. These are available from zazzle.com. Many countries have stamps that can be customized too. Use your theme pic or photo on the stamp to coordinate with your printable creation.

CREATE SOMETING BEAUTIFUL