How to Create Your Own Wacky Greeting Card! by Jessica Sellers

Creating and sending cards or unusual holidays is un and easier than you may think! All you need is a reedesign program called Inkscape and a powerul yet simple connecting tool called SendOutCards...oh, and a littlecreativity!For starts, it is easy to download Inkscape onto your computer. It is like Illustrator (in act it does some thingsIllustrator won’t) but yet it’s ree! Just go to http://www.Inkscape.org and click on the Downloads link. I youhave a windows computer, click the link on the Downloads page that says .exe installer. Tere are other optionsor Linux users.Once you click on the .exe installer link, you will be taken to another website where you will be able todownload Inkscape. Just ollow the prompts and you should have no trouble downloading and installingInkscape.

When Inkscape is all the way downloaded, you will then be prompted to open up the program.Congratulations! You now have Inkscape!

Te next thing you will want to do is ormat your page so it is the correct size or your greeting card. I havecreated a template with the correct dimensions or a 5x7 greeting card, with room or trimming. You can adjustthe size o your page by clicking File --> Document Properties.It is important to remember that some o the card will be cut o, so in my template, Ihave placed a dotted line around the “SaeZone.” (Make sure you delete the dottedline beore you actually export your carddesign.)At any rate, you are now ready to design your card! For this example, i am going tostart out with some text, “Happy Make Up Your Own Holiday Day!” Te A icon on the let toolbar allows youto create a text box o any size that you want. You can also adjust the size later i you need to.I have put my text into a text box and thenstarted playing around with onts and ontsizes. FYI: Conglomeront is a ree ont you can fnd online. It gives this card theestive look I want. Te top toolbar is where youfnd the ont type and ont sizeand ont alignment boxes.Note: You can mix and matchonts and ont sizes within atext box--they don’t all have tobe the same.I you want to change the coloro the ont, click on Object -->Fill and Stroke. From here youcan change the color o the fllusing the CMYK slider bars, onthe frst tab. I you want to addan outline to the text, click onthe second tab, Stroke. Te thirdtab lets you adjust the thicknessand style o the outline.