Creating Halloween Invitations on Your Computer

By Chris Kullstroem

Now is the perfect time to make your Halloween plans for the upcoming season, and to get those invitations ready for mailing. Many haunted attractions, Halloween parties, shows, and more already have their tickets on sale for September and October, and sending out invitations now allows everyone to take any time off work, book hotel rooms, and buy tickets well in advance.

This year, forget about those invitation packages you can pick up at any store, and make something of your own design right on your computer. You can create these by using programs like Microsoft Word, Paintworks, Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop using your own Halloween pictures and images. Three fun and easy types of Halloween invitations you can make are note cards, folded cards and flyers.

To start, choose a picture that you've taken yourself and have saved on the computer. Use a photo from a Halloween event, of the family trick-or-treating, or one of your house all decorated for the holiday. You can also choose a picture you've found online at a Halloween website –just make sure you're allowed to use it, and that it's not copyrighted.

Note cards
Note cards are one-sided cards that are usually 5x7". You can print these out from any printer that accepts cardstock paper, or have them printed at a printing store for an average of $1.50 per card.

To make your card, open your picture in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or another designing program. Set the image to be a 5x7 document so that it is the actual size of the card you'll be printing. Insert a text box, and make it cover the entire picture. Type in your message in the text box, inviting friends to your Halloween adventure. You can also download different fonts to match the look of your card.  

Folded Cards
Another type of card you can create with your own Halloween images is a folded card, or the type of card you would buy at the store. You can create these cards in either a design program or in Microsoft Word.

Using a design program, follow the same steps as for making flat note cards to specially design your pictures, only make separate images for the front of the card, one or two for the inside, and one for the back cover if you wish. Save the images in a jpeg format, and insert them onto a regular Word document. Print out the pages from a color printer, then cut them out and paste them onto blank cards of any color. You can write descriptions of the attractions on or around the images, as well as times and ticket prices.
Making folded card invitations is less expensive than taking your image to a printing store, and they are fun crafts to get you into the upcoming Halloween season.

Flyers
You can also make invitations on a one-page Word document, without using any design programs or using cards. Simply insert your Halloween pictures or images into the document, and write your messages above, below and around your pictures however you like. You can also add borders, shadowing and colored text. To make the invitations more festive, put them in orange, black or green envelopes, and seal them with a Halloween sticker.

Creating these types of invitations doesn’t require any special software like Paint or Photoshop, and you’ll have everything you need right in your own home!

Personal Halloween invitations are lots of fun to make and are great for your parties and get-togethers. You can become the designer of your own haunted happenings while you make your plans for celebrating the upcoming season.