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I'm going to show you a few ways to make stationery... These can used for Outlook Express and Incredimail. Although Incredimail is very limited as to what kind of stationery you can make for it... Outlook has the option to use HTML coding which you can make the OE look just like any web page.. using all kinds of scripts. Incredimail does not have that option... but can make some really cute ones for it..

The standard size to make your canvas for a left side stat is 1024 x 300. This can be used for 1024 x 768 and 800 x 600 resolution monitors.. being the design in on the left side.. its ok for both resolutions.

*The height really depends on your graphics your using for your stationery*

If your wanting your letter to be stationary and not scroll.. just have the words scroll over it.. then you make the stats 1024 x 750 or 800 x 550.. Might have to tinker with the height some.. depends on your design... IF you want to TILE the bkg letter like a left sided design one and the letter scroll under the stationary words...then you make it 1024 x 300 or so *height depending on graphic.* Hope that makes sense. We ALWAYS design our stationary in PSP. Finish it Save and Name it..

THEN go to your Incredimail Letter creator* you have to buy that separate from the IM, or buy the bundle*.. OR your Outlook Express.

Here is how you make a side design stationery.. for both OE and IM and both monitor resolutions..

Open you a new canvas.. 1024 x whatever the height of the graphic your using is.. mine is 360

So I made a new canvas 1024 x 360. I'm not going to go through the steps on HOW I made the design on this stationery.. there are other tuts for that..*you do it just like a tag but to the left* anyway design your stat on the far left side.. as in the capture below.

Your own creativity here as to designing the stationery.

Below I Merge/merge down the Bunny and the heart below it.. its the SIDE design... then I merged the decos I made with brushes.. and the white background.. together... Reason you have to have them separate layers.. is you have to use different techniques in the seamless tiling you have to do

Here is the layer palette after you do the merge downs.

Below... the left top layer...the bunny and heart.. I want to seamless tile... vertically...up and down in other words.. these are the settings I used.. you can play around with the width on this... you will have to HANDS ON to see what I mean... some designs the number will have to be set higher. You can see the settings I used below.

Now once the bunny and heart are seamless tiled Vertically... then the white background with the words on it... I have to seamless tile.. in ALL directions...bi directional in other words.. see below... When you use bi directional... it tiles it on ALL four sides and makes it a totally seamless tile.. that can fill a big background and you not see the 'seams' that's ugly when you can see that.

Here is the small sample of the finished stationery.. its at 60% as you can see.. This stationery below has to be TILED in OE or Incredimail.. and the words are don't look like they move.. the stationery below scrolls..

This is the second way you can do an Incredimail stat.

You make a new image 1024 x 768 OR 800 x 600 . When this stationery below is made you DON'T tile it.. its stationary and the words look like they scroll or float over it...

You design your stationery any way you want.. remember to put every thing on its own layer that way you can move around the layers.. adjust etc... In this one below I filled the bottom layer with a seamless pattern fill.. then added a new layer.. filled it with another seamless pattern fill...that coordinated in colors and theme. on that second layer.. I filled ... applied a MASK on it.. see the hearts on the side.. Check my tutorial on 'Working with Masks' if you don't know how to do one... I copied and pasted the bunny on top... added a 3D drop shadow on it and then a prospective shadow also... then added a new layer UNDER the bunny... and used a brush to make the white heart.... *you can also make animated stationery, after you design the initial stationery, if you wanted to put noise glitter or sparkles etc on there you would just duplicate the layers and select the areas to use the noise on and on each duplicated layer use a different noise setting..You would either save it as an animation file (*.psp) file format.. and open it in Animation Shop OR copy and paste each of the layers into the animation shop*

Just use your imagination

Now that you've made your stationery... I will show you how to 'put them together' in IM and OE.

You go through this SAME process with the 1024 x 750 stationery.. ONLY difference is you DON'T tile it at the beginning on the body tab.

It's pretty self explanatory after you know where to go. Message/New Message Using/Select stationery.

Create NEW

Browse to find the Stat you made in PSP

*Make a folder where you keep all the stats you create, easier to keep up with them all.*

The side design stat like this one you see in the preview window.. I tiled vertically.. the one you make that's 1024 x 768 or 800 x 600 you wouldn't tile. NEXT

Select your font, size and color of font here, NEXT

Adjust your margin so that the text does not cover the left design of the stationery.

Name your new stationery.

Next time you want to use it.. go to Message/New Using/Pick your new one off the list if its there if not.. go to Select Stationery and find it on the browse window that pops up.

I hope this has helped you create your first stationery... and it was understandable to ya

Till next time friends..

Toodles..

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