Crabby Office Lady

As Valentine's Day approaches, the greeting card and flower companies whoop it up. As for you, something handmade and from the heart may be just the thing you need to make your love life sparkle again.

As some of you may know, I've experienced my fair share of love, marriage, and partnership (not to mention the joys — and pitfalls — that come from them). In fact, in my column Get ready, get organized, and get hitched with Office, you can read all about my last three marriages and how Office helped out as best it could. Looking back, though, I have to wonder if maybe templates would have helped. Hmmm...maybe employing the perfect clip art at just the perfect time could have prevented at least some marital strife.

But never mind all that. In this column, I'm talking about the art of romance — not marriage (although you never know what may spring from a perfectly crafted card, letter, or even a special Web site). I'm talking about the yearning to express oneself on a day set aside for lovers and lovers-to-be — a day for which the greeting card makers and candy manufacturers of America are filled with glee. That's right: Valentine's Day (cue moving swell of background music).

 Note   One word of caution before you get all excited about the Valentine's Day ideas I'm going to present: There is a fine line between heavy wooing and stalking. Keep that in mind, won't you?

Woo with the right tool

When you want to say the right thing at the right time and in just the right way, it's sometimes hard to pull it all together by yourself. So that's why, lovers of the world, we created special Valentine's Day content on the Office Online Web site, designed to get you the mood and help you make the most of your best intentions, romantic ideas, and creative impulses.

Create your own card using a template and clip art

Who would have thought that Office templates and clip art would be a preamble to love? (We did, of course; we're always looking out for you.)

Step 1: Choose a template

We have many valentine templates suitable for a variety of valentines on the Office Templates Web site, but one of my favorites is Make-your-own valentines for kids. This template has four pages of card designs, with three cards on each page. So, in essence, you get 12 different valentines (and one universal back page) with one download. Can't beat that, I say. You just pop some Avery 5388 card stock paper into your printer, click Print, and you can make as many children happy as your heart has room for. The following is an example of what one of the four pages looks like. If you need step-by-step instructions on how to print these, fold them, and get them on their way, we can help out there too, with our make-your-own valentines for kids template instructions.

Step 2: Customize the template

If my memory isn't failing me, I did write a column called Learn to customize templates (and avoid the guilt). Here are some ideas about how to customize your valentine template:

• Change the font size, style, color, or effect that came with the original template.
• Use the Research task pane (available on the Tools menu) to figure out ways to express yourself more creatively: Add a quotation, say something in French, or even toss your company's latest stock quote into your valentine (if that's how you woo).
• Use clip art. All of the templates on the site were made with art you can find on Microsoft Office Clip Art and Media. Once you're on that page, you can use that handy-dandy Search box, and, by plugging in a variety of keywords, find the perfect piece of art for your valentine.

  Some examples are:

  Valentines	Flowers	Friendship
  Hearts	Marriage	Cupid

Beyond cards

Sometimes creating a card or letter is just the beginning. We have templates for shipping labels, address labels, and beyond.

• Valentine's Day shipping labels
• Valentine's Day return address labels
• Valentine's Day gift labels
• Flyer for Valentine's Day event
• So you want more than a letter or card to reflect the passion you feel for your boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, or even your customer? Create a Valentine's Day Web site using FrontPage 2003. This article gives you ideas about how to go about this using interactive buttons, a photo gallery, and clip art and photos.

Final words

This is the day to make someone yours — the day to strike up something new, let someone know you love them, or keep the home fires burning (at home). And finally, it's a day to avoid that frantic last-minute dash to the grocery store for a valentine that's sure to say, "Hey! I'm boring, thoughtless, and I have no creativity or passion! Love me, why don't you!"

"Working with Julie Andrews is like getting hit over the head with a valentine." — Christopher Plummer

About the author

Annik Stahl, the Crabby Office Lady columnist, takes all of your complaints, compliments, and knee-jerk reactions to heart. Therefore, she graciously asks that you let her know whether this column was useful to you — or not — by entering your feedback using the Was this information helpful? tool below. And remember: If you don't vote, you can't complain.