Typically a Valentine's Day card comes from your local greeting card store. But imagine how special your Valentine would feel if you took the time to create a personalized card from scratch instead! With technology ever growing there are so many fun, easy and affordable ways to design your own greetings in no time at all. This season get in touch with your creative side and add that extra personal touch for your special Valentine. Below are a few tips on how to design and create your own original Valentines with just a few easy clicks of the mouse on your computer.

Many of you may already have discovered online photo galleries to upload, share, and order prints of your photos from your digital camera. But there is so much more you can do with online photo galleries. You also can use your photos to create greeting cards, photo card announcements or even photo books. Online galleries such as Kodak Easy Share Gallery (formerly Ofoto), Snapfish, and Shutterfly provide a variety of Valentine's Day designs to insert a photo of yourself or family members with a personalized message to send out to family and friends, or to that special someone.

If you want to go a step beyond a Valentine's photo card, consider creating a photo album of all your special moments together with that special someone. You can choose the cover material, designs of the pages and personalize messages throughout the book. Moms, the best thing about this there is no glue involved! After completing the process online, place your order and the online gallery site will create and ship it to you. This adds a special personalized touch to make for a more meaningful holiday.

As I know with my daughter Kaitlyn, Valentine's Day also is a great holiday for kids at school. They get to bring in Valentines for their classmates and count the number of heart lollipops they've received in their Valentine bag. This year, instead of going to the supermarket to pick up pre-made Valentines, take the time with your child to get creative and make them together at home on your computer. Not only is it fun for the kids, but you are getting to spend quality time together.

Adobe Photoshop is a great tool for digital image editing. There are a variety of tools that allow you to use photo images, scanned images or even clip art to create a just the right greeting. If you're feeling especially inspired, Adobe Photoshop has tutorials for creating more elaborate Valentines, such as a Valentine's gift box and even a 3-D Pop Up Valentine. Go to http://www.adobe.com/education/digkids/ for tips and tutorials to help you in your Valentine greeting creations.

If you don't have Adobe Photoshop get creative with what you do have. Microsoft Word allows you to paint, paste clip art and design. All you need is a color printer and you can have an original Valentine in no time.

Also, don't forget about infamous eCards. They are a perfect solution for those last minute greetings you forgot to send out in time and also a terrific way to reach your loved ones all over the world. There are many different Web sites that provide a variety of eCards to choose from, many of which are free! You can Google search for the best fitting card to send to your loved ones, whether it's funny, touching or friendly, to make it more personal for each special person.

Have yourself a Geek loving Valentine's Day!

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