A great gift idea is to create personal stationary. Several techniques are discussed to vary your styling.

Creating a stationary set is pretty easy with MS Word. As easy as inserting clip art, WordArt or pictures into a blank document and perhaps adding a greeting or name and address. You will need to go to an office supply house such as Staples or Office Max to purchase quality paper for gift giving purposes. Purchasing matching envelops will complement your stationary gift quite nicely. If your printer handles envelopes you could consider putting the return address and the same graphic you select for the letterhead on the envelope.

To start the process, you will need decide on a theme and select the clip art or picture you want to use. For example, suppose you have a teacher on your gift giving list, you would want to find clip art appropriate for teaching. Ideas might be an apple, pencil/pens, books etc. Use your imagination and knowledge of the person for which you are creating the gift. You can also consider using the draw tools or Inserting Word Art to create a unique design.

Once you have selected your theme, you then need to decide where you want your design elements placed on the stationary. Some suggestions include:
• Top left corner
• Centered across the top
• Top right corner
• Each of the corners of the top
• Centered across the bottom
• Centered on the paper with a faded or “washed out” look

Inserting the Clip Art
It is recommended that you turn-off the Drawing Canvas option found on the General tab of the options dialog box before beginning.

• Select | Picture | Clip Art (or From File for Pictures or Word Art)
• When you choose Clip Art the Clip Art Task Pane will automatically be displayed. Locate the clip art you want to insert.
• Double click on the clip art object in the Clip Art Task Pane.
• Click and hold the mouse key in the center of the inserted clip art object and drag it into the position you want.
• Resize the object to your liking
• Add a Name and Address block, quote or greeting as desired.

Essentially the process would be the same for a picture or word art.

To use the faded or washed out feature in the center of the page:
• After resizing and placing in the center, right click on the object and select Format Picture
• Click on the Image Control Color drop down and choose washout.

Once you have your objects positioned as you want then place the premium paper into your print tray. Use the File | Print command to print the number of pages you want to give as your gift. Packaged stationary sets often include 20 or 25 pieces of letterhead.

Once printed, tie a ribbon loosely around the paper. Insert into a nice box large enough to fit 8 x 10 paper. Adding a nice pen and pencil set to the package creates a nice gift set.

You could also use this technique to create professional letterhead for your business. Use your company logo for the graphics and add the company Name, Address, telephone number, web site URL and email address, as appropriate.