Mother’s Day is only a few days away, your mother lives somewhere across the country and you haven’t mailed a greeting card to her yet. Shame on you! You might still get it there in time if you act quickly but you still have the hassle of picking out a blah, ho-hum card from the store.

Why not email her something that is a little more personalized?

Here’s an idea to save your bacon. Take a cute photo from your childhood that evokes a fond memory and add a funny cartoon dialog to it. Here are instructions on how to do this using Photoshop Elements but you can use just about any image editing software if you want.

First thing you want to do after finding and opening your photo image is click File => Duplicate so the original is preserved. Now close the original file and use the copy to create your eCard.

Next, Alt+Ctrl+I to resize the image so it’s easy to view on a computer screen. I picked 700 pixels for my width. Double-click on the Zoom tool to view your document at 100% (actual pixels).

Add the Cartoon Bubble

In the Layers palette, click the New Layer button. Go to the Content palette and double click a cartoon talk bubble shape to add to the new layer. If you don’t see the Content palette, go to Window on the top navigation bar and click Content to make it show.

With the cartoon talk bubble now in the new layer, click and drag a corner handle to size it to your photo. If the tail of the cartoon bubble faces the wrong way, click and drag one of the side handles till the image flips horizontally. Use the Move Tool (press the V key or hold down the Ctrl key) to drag the bubble into the correct position.

Let’s add a stroke to the cartoon bubble. Make sure your layer with the cartoon bubble is still selected. Then in the Effects palette, click the Layer Styles button and double-click the thumbnail you want to apply to the shape. I used the Black Stroke at 2px.

Add the Text for the Cartoon Bubble

In the Layers palette, click the New Layer button . Press T to select the Text Tool. I used the Digital Strip font available from our Fonts Download page. Add in your selected text. Use the text alignment drop down to center the block of text. Then hold down the CTRL key while you click and drag the text to align within the cartoon bubble.

Finally, go to File => Save For Web and choose JPEG as the file type. This saves the image in a compact file size, good for emailing or posting on your Facebook page.

Your mother will really appreciate the personalized greeting and your procrastination ends up saving you a few bucks.

Happy Mother’s Day!