10 Projects Created with Canva

It’s no secret that Kristin and I are slightly obsessed with Canva, an easy-to-use web-based, graphic design platform. Even though I’m comfortable using Photoshop, I gravitate more to Canva for my digital/hybrid scrapbooking because it’s so user friendly. (No 50 photoshop layers!!)

I shared a blog post earlier this year about Creating with Canva. Now I thought I would show different projects I’ve created using just Canva. (Although Canva is available as an app, I prefer to use the web version on my computer) 

Here are 10 projects I’ve made with Canva:

A rainbow bookshelf

I was inspired by the trend of rainbow bookshelves and wanted to document some of the books I’ve read/listened to this year. For these pages I used 4×3 grids (found in the Canva elements tab).

With Canva, you can copy and paste photos from the web right into your project. So for this one, I would copy the photos from Google Images, paste them into Canva, and then drag that photo into the grid placeholder. I love that I don’t have to save the files to my computer first.

The book illustrations at the bottom are digital stickers from Traci Reed. It’s easy to upload a PNG image file (like a digital sticker) to add to your layout. These are 8.5×11 pages that I will print out and punch to put in my disc-bound memory planner.

A simple grid page

This page was made with a 2×2 grid, and the TV show images copied + pasted from Google Images into Canva. I felt like the colors of the photos didn’t go well together so I used the adjust setting to tone down the saturation and up the contrast.

There are also preset filters you can use on your photos. I like to use them when I want a cohesive look. For the titles on this page, I used the hollow text effect for three of the titles and then left the other one normal. 

Documenting a day in the life

Each month I document a day in the life in a simple two page 8.5×11 spread. For the left side I typically use a 3×3 grid to easily drop in nine photos from the day. Then the right side is where I write about the day. Having a basic formula for these pages makes it easy to get this done every month. 

Documenting election stress

In the stress of waiting for the election results, I wanted to channel my anxiety into documenting that moment in time. I took information from a New York Times article on the current state of the race to create this layout.

The states used in this project are free elements from Canva. They were originally navy, but with most Canva illustrations, you can easily change the colors so I switched them up for my pages. These two 8.5×11 pages will get printed out, punched, and put in my memory planner. 

Mood board

I love creating mood boards and vision boards using grids in Canva. I enjoy the look of clean, simple pages. For this one, I wanted to capture the feeling of fall fading into winter. I used a 3×3 grid and copied photos right from Pinterest. This is a 6×8 page that will go in my fall album. 

Using digital papers & hexagon frames

If you have any digital scrapbook papers, you can upload those to Canva and play around with them. I added hexagon frames to make this layout and then added the digital papers to the frames. You can change the scale and zoom in or out of the papers to get different looks. 

TN layout

For this project I started with a document that was sized for a travelers notebook (I went with 4.25×8.25 for my Life Crafted Album) to create this simple layout about my favorite musicals. I used circle frames and then pasted in the musical photos. Canva has lots of free fonts available and while I have my favorites, I wanted to mix it up with this fun script font for this layout. 

Monthly overview

Most of the time I print my Canva layouts as is, but for this monthly project, I use Canva to resize a bunch of my photos so they’re ready to print. These are designed to fit in a big Happy Planner monthly spread. I find it easier to use Canva grids to resize my photos vs. doing all of that in Photoshop with a million layers. 

Making my own graphic

I wanted to document the accomplishment that I didn’t check my work email while on vacation. I used a trophy clip art from Canva and added a text box with my name (and of course had to use a purple background). I love having this at the end of my travel album from this vacation. It’s a bit silly, but I love it. 

Journaling cards

I’ve been making 3×4 journal card sets for ALP All Access Members this year and a lot of them were created using Canva! It’s fun to use different Canva illustrations to make your own coordinating cards. These are some of the ones I’ve made so far.

If you can’t tell, I really love using Canva for all these scrapbooking. This is just a sample of what I’ve made so far. I hope this inspired you, and let me know if there are any specific Canva tutorials you want me to do next!