Friends and family are in town and it's time to gather in holiday cheer. But the stress of planning the perfect party can overwhelm any holiday enthusiast. To-do lists, cleaning, and food prepping are just the tip of the parting-planning iceberg. There are tools on your home PC that can make the planning as fun as the party.

Use these tips to reduce your party-planning stress and make it a success from start to finish।

Start with the invitations

There is no need to go to the store for your invitations. You can use templates in Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 and personal pictures to create colorful and attractive invitations. Digital Image Suite contains more than 2,400 built-in images and 1,500 templates to make greeting cards, calendars, collages, or other photo projects and can be found in Microsoft Works Suite 2006.

Create a photo invitation:

1.	Open Digital Image Suite Editor and in the Common Tasks task pane select Create a Project.
2.	Select Cards and then Invitations.
3.	Pick from a variety of themes and select the template of your choice.
4.	Customize the card by adding your own images, tailoring the message on the front, or adding additional text.
5.	Then you can add specific information to the inside of the invitation.

Invitation templates found in Digital Image Suite can be personalized with photos and your own holiday greetings।

Create your mailing labels:

Once you have your invitations, you can avoid hand cramps and faulty pens by using Microsoft Works Suite to create and print mailing labels for all your guests. Using mail merge will save you time and keep you organized. You can put the names and addresses of your guests into a Works spreadsheet and then create mailing labels.