First Holy Communion Stampita

Last December 2010, my daughter had her First Holy Communion. Looking back to my very own First Holy Communion and that of my son as well, I decided to have stampitas made for my daughter.

A stampita is a special card which serves as a souvenir of a first communicant's memorable day. It contains all the details like the name of the first communicant, the date, the place, and you may add an appropriate prayer or Biblical quotation to make the stampita more meaningful. You can have several copies printed and you can given away copies to your daughter's or son's classmates.

Do a lot of families still prepare stampitas these days? Not as many as before, I guess. Some families opt to give rosaries, prayer books, or other religious items to commemorate the occasion.

If you would still like to have stampitas made, here's where you can get them:

You can get the paper itself (with the picture or design on one side and with the other side blank so you can have the details printed there) from St. Paul's in Megamall. They are located at Unit 109 Ground Floor, Bldg. A, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City. Their phone number is 634-1295 in Metro Manila, Philippines. The cards are made in Italy. Depending on the quality of the paper and the type of design, the pieces of cards/paper can cost anywhere from as low as P6 per piece to as high as P12 or P14. You can buy on a per piece basis. There is no minimum lot size that you need to buy. Thus, you can get several pieces of different designs for variety. In choosing the paper, it is better to choose the flat kind (instead of the ones where the design appears to be embossed) for ease of printing.

After getting the paper or the cards from St. Paul's, you can have the printing done at Almatech Cards and Printing. Look for Johnny Almazan. They are open Mondays to Saturdays from 9am to 5pm. It is better to call them first at 897-5665. They print quite fast. In the year 2010, their printing cost was P10 per piece. If you bring the wording that you want on a certain day, they can already lay it out right away and you can sign off on the proof. Printing only takes a day. They also have e-mail so you can send them the wording or get confirmation on the status of your order via e-mail. Almatech is located at 9497 Anubing St. Makati.