Hello Patricia.
Since you do not have an upgraded account and cannot use images, this is where your emoticons can come into use.
Notice when you're about to write a post or reply to an email, there's a little smiley face right among the many options right above the reply box? Click on that and you'll get a pop-up table listing all the available emoticons you can use.
It's completely up to you how and which ones you choose to use.

For example, writing something like:

{e:angel}{e:angel} {b}{c:grape}Proud Member of {item:army}!{/c}{/b} {e:angel}{e:angel}

Will produce:

Proud Member of "Invalid Item" !

Does that help? :)