This Week: Rapid Scrapbooking Layout #2

Hey Rapid Scrapbookers! Welcome to Grandma’s Experiments. I’m Stacey, and each week, I send out a new template we use to complete our weekly layouts. If you’d like to join us, please sign up for my newsletter.

We will be using this template today:

Rapid Scrapbooking Should Be Fun

Remember to relax and have fun while working on your layout. Get as much done as you can, but don’t stress. You can pick up where you left off the next time you have free time.

Let’s Get Started – Upload your Rapid Scrapbooking Template into Canva

The first thing we want to do is upload the rapid scrapbooking template into Canva. To do that, open Canva. It should open to the home screen.

At the bottom of the screen is a purple circle with a plus sign. Tap on that to open the ‘Create a Design’ menu.

At the bottom of the menu, you’ll see “Start Creating from Your Media”. Below are pictures from your camera roll and an Upload Cloud. I have the template in Dropbox, so I’ll tap on the Upload Cloud.

A three-item menu will open. You can pull the template from your ‘Photo Library’, ‘Take Photo or Video’, or ‘Choose File’. Tap on ‘Choose File’. Now, scroll through your files and find where you have the template.

When you find the rapid scrapbooking template, all you need to do to upload it to Canva is tap on the picture. Once uploaded, you’ll see the template in your home page ‘Recent Designs’ section.

We want to use the template on multiple projects, so before we start on our page, we need to make a copy of the template. We’ll use the copy to create our layout. Tap the three dots in the upper right-hand corner to make the copy. That’ll bring up a menu.

One of the choices will be ‘Make a Copy’. Just tap on that.

To the left of the original template, you’ll see a copy of the template. Sometimes the file will not have the picture of the template, but the copy will still have worked.

Open the Rapid Scrapbooking Template in the Editor

Tap on the template’s image to open it in the Editor. Once it opens, we can start working with it. The template for layout 2 has frames for six pictures.

Add or Delete Frames to Accommodate the Number of Pictures You Have

If you don’t have six pictures, that’s not a problem. You can remove any frames that you don’t want.

For example, if I only had five pictures, I would find the frame I don’t want and press and hold until the ‘More’ menu opens at the bottom of the screen.

The ‘More’ menu offers a variety of functions. You can copy, paste, and more, but if you scroll all the way to the right, you’ll see Delete. Just tap on that, and the frame is gone. If you did that by mistake, you can always go to the top menu and tap the Undo icon.

You can also add frames, so if we decide that we do have six pictures, all we have to do is find a frame that we want to duplicate and do the same thing. Press and hold until the ‘More’ menu opens at the bottom. Now we can tap on Copy, and up at the top, you’ll see ‘Copied to Clipboard’. Next, tap on Paste. Now, there’s a duplicate in our design. It’s on top of the one we copied, so it’s hard to see it, but it’s there.

Press and hold the crosshairs, and move the new frame up where you want it. Alright, we have our six frames back.

You Can Manipulate the Frames on Any Template

You can rearrange the frames, you can delete frames, you can copy frames. It’s not specific to this template.

Upload the Pictures

To move the pictures into the frames, we’ll have to upload them. First, close the ‘Selection’ menu at the bottom of the screen by tapping on the X.

The ‘Editor Toolbar’ at the bottom of the screen allows us to import pictures from the ‘Camera Roll’ or upload them from the cloud. Let’s choose ‘Upload’ by tapping on that.

Now that we’re on the Upload screen, we’ll tap ‘Upload Files’. Again, you can bring the files in from your ‘Photo Library’, ‘Take Photo or Video’, or ‘Choose File’. We’re going to tap on ‘Choose File’.

Once you navigate to your files, you only need to tap the circle on the picture(s) to select it. After selecting them all, tap on Open in the upper right-hand corner. And it’ll pull the images into Canva. In Canva, you’ll see the progress bars at the bottom of the pictures indicating that they’re uploading.

Moving the Pictures into the Frames

Once the upload is complete, tap on a picture to move it into the Editor.

To put the picture into a frame, press and hold on it and move it over the frame you want. The image will become slightly transparent, and you can see the frame underneath your picture. Once you see your picture in the frame, release your finger.

If you want to adjust the picture after it is in the frame, zoom in by pinching out. Double-tap on the image. The picture will open, and you can rotate it, resize it by grabbing the corners, and move it around in the frame. Once you have it the way you want, click ‘Done’ to close the crop menu at the bottom of the screen and snap the picture back into the frame.

If you zoomed in, zoom back out by pinching in. Close the ‘Selection’ menu at the bottom of the screen.
Tap on Uploads. Tap on the next picture. Move the image into a frame. Repeat this until all the photos are in frames.

Document the When, Where, and Who

Now, we need to do some journaling. Let’s put the date in the tag at the top of the page.

Go to the ‘Editor Toolbar’, tap ‘Text’, and then tap ‘Add a Text Box’.

Press and hold the crosshairs, move it up into the date tag, and type in the date. When you finish, press ‘Done’ to close your keyboard.

The default text is small. Go to the ‘Text’ menu, which is still open at the bottom of your screen, and tap ‘Font Size’. Move the slider by pressing and holding on it. Slide it to the right until the text is how you like it. Now tap on the X to close the ‘Font Size’ menu.

To reposition the date in the tag, press and hold the crosshairs until the date is in the center of the tag. Close the ‘Text’ menu at the bottom of the screen by clicking on the X.

Choose where you want to document your Who and Where. I want to use the two diamonds at the bottom of the page to hold embellishments, so I’ll journal in the space between the pictures. Go to the bottom menu and press the ‘Text’ icon. Then tap ‘Add a Text Box’. Press and hold the crosshairs to move the text into the area between the pictures. Enter a description of the event. Then press ‘Done’ to close the keyboard and press X to close the ‘Text’ menu.

Check out the tutorial for Layout #1 if you want to change the color of your layout or any of the page’s elements.

If You Have Time, Add Embellishments

On the ‘Editor Toolbar’, tap on ‘Elements’.

Go to the top of the Elements page and tap on the search bar. The keyboard will open. Type in the kind of element you want in the search bar. For example, I am looking for a snake. Tap on ‘Return’ to start the search and close the keyboard.

To see all the graphics that Canva found, tap on ‘See All’. The graphics with the crown are for the pro version. For the free version, we can use any that don’t have a crown.

I found a snake I like, so I’ll tap on him, and he’ll load in the Editor.

He’s a bit big, so I’ll press and hold one of the corners and drag it in to make him smaller. Since this graphic doesn’t have the crosshairs, I’ll press and hold the snake and pull him down to one of those diamonds. Tap the X to close the ‘Selection’ menu at the bottom of the screen, and that’ll remove the box around the graphic.

Once again, let’s tap on ‘Elements’ in the ‘Editor Toolbar’. This time, I’ll look for a lizard. Tap on ‘Return’ to start the search and close the keyboard.
Pick the graphic you like and tap on it to move it to Editor. If it’s too big, press and hold on a corner dot and drag it in to make it smaller. I’ll press and hold the double arrows and angle him slightly. Then, press and hold the crosshair to drag the graphic down into the diamond.

Save Your Layout

Now that we’ve completed the page, we need to save it.

To do that, come up to the three dots in the menu at the top of the page and tap on that.

You’ll see the file name at the top of the page, followed by a pencil icon. Tap on the pencil and name your file descriptively. I’ll call mine ‘Repticon 2022’. Tap ‘Return’ to save the change and close the keyboard.

Now scroll down the menu and click on ‘Move to Folder’.

I have a folder named Pages, where I save my layouts.
If you don’t have a folder already created, you’ll have to go to the bottom of the menu and tap ‘Create New’ to create one. I’ll tap on Pages and then tap on the ‘Move’ icon. At the top of the screen, Canva will display ‘design moved to Pages’. It’ll still be in the Editor, but now you have a copy in that folder. Swipe down to close the menu.

To Print Your Layout

If you want to print your layout:

Tap on the icon with the up arrow.

Tap on Download. You can select PNG, JPEG, or PDF; pick whichever works best for you and your printer. Tap Download.

It’ll think about it briefly, then bring up a phone menu. Tap ‘Print’ or ‘Save to Files’.

Clean out the Uploads Area

The next thing we want to do is clean out the Upload area.

On the ‘Editor Toolbar’, scroll to Uploads and tap on it.

Once you’re inside the upload area, press and hold on the picture to bring up an options menu. If you have a folder where you want to save your photos, select ‘Move to Folder’ from the menu. Select ‘Move to Trash’ if you saved your pictures in your camera roll or a folder. You can always upload the photo again if you want to create a new layout. Go through that process with all the photos in Uploads until the space is empty. Now, the Upload folder is clean and ready for our next project. Swipe down to close the menu.

Close Your Layout

To close your layout and exit the Editor, tap the hamburger icon and then tap ‘Canva’ at the top of the menu. That’ll take you back to your home screen.

File Your Rapid Scrapbooking Template

The next thing we want to do is move the original rapid scrapbooking template into a folder.

Tap on the three dots in the upper right-hand corner of the template icon. Tap on ‘Move to Folder’. I have a folder named Templates that I’m going to move it into.

We are Done

We are cleaned up and ready for next week. All you have to do now is start picking out your photos for next week’s page. There will be another six-photo rapid scrapbooking template.

We have covered the basics of moving the rapid scrapbooking template and the photos into Canva, moving the photos into frames, and organizing our workspace to help us complete our layouts faster. Beginning next week, we will start adding more embellishments to the page so we can make our layouts look more like traditional paper scrapbook layouts.

Until next week, Happy Scrapbooking!