How to use our graphics using the "Templates" feature  in Gmail

I truly mourned the loss of that amazing stationery and mail creator, IncrediMail. In the absence of that, I use Gmail's template feature.
It's a poor substitute, because you can't add a color background for your email template and save it as a whole stationery image, but that's
all there is right now, that I know of. Just plain old plain background, and an image sitting on top is what they're calling a template. Boring.

Thunderbird users: As we get used to Thunderbird's stationary plug-in, we'll post instructions and stationery for you to download.

First things first....

1. Log in to your Gmail account.

2. Click on the gear icon in the upper right corner and select "Settings."

3. Click on the "Advanced" link on the right side of the menu list at the top.

4. Next to "Templates" click the button next to "Enable" templates.

5. Click on the "Save Changes" button at the top or bottom of the screen to save the setting that allows you to use templates in your mail. If you forget to "save changes", it won't allow templates to be used.

To select one of our graphics files and save it as a new "Template."

Create a folder just for our graphcs for use as templates. When you save our images, save them there, and they will be easy to find.

- Locate an image you wish to use, right click and copy.
- Go to the open "compose" letter, right click in the body, right click paste. There's your mail image.
- click the three dots  in the lower right corner of the composition window.
When the options box opens,  select "Templates" and then "Save draft as template" and "Save as new template."

That's it! 
To use the template as stationery, click to compose your next letter, choose the three little dots at the bottom,  templates, and there is where you'll find a list of your templates. Click on the template you wish to use in your mail. Type in your message, and send it on it's way. You can always use this method in replies and forward emails.

Don't forget that you can re-size, add text,  and re-arrange  our images in your graphics editor to personalize your message. I occasionally use an image of the outside and inside of vintage greeting cards to create my own  graphic "message". Or i'll type a greeting onto the image before creating it as a template.That way, i don't have to type any message, just send the letter  with the template graphic as an entire greeting. Just create any graphic greeting, and save the image as instructed  as a template. The easiest thing to do is to use the collections of vintage greeting cards that already have an original greeting or message on them.

Notes: I think there is a limit of 50 templates you can save in gmail at a time. You'll eventually have to rotate saved templates after you reach the limit of saved templates.

You can set up easily accessible folders for all of your favorite graphics to create templates with, so it will be easy to find them. My folder is called "eyecandee gmail templates". I keep hundreds of my favorite graphics in that folder to use in creating templates.