I am so excited to begin designing my weekly pages using Canva and I invite you to follow along on my YouTube channel – this is one of the best ways to learn and be inspired to finally get a Family Yearbook completed in 2024.

This year I’m focussing on:

1. Consistent Design with Ali Edwards: I’ll be kickstarting each week with Ali Edward’s “Week 01, 1-7 JANUARY 2024” text element, this streamlines the design process, minimizing decision fatigue.

2. Inclusion of Text: I’ll be adding some photo labels, journaling, and quotes so that if someone pages through my Family Yearbook they get to “hear” what I would be saying if I were sitting next to them. I won’t feel any pressure to write long descriptions just if and when I please.

3. 8-10 photos per week: But if I feel like breaking this rule, no problem at all! You will see that we went on a road trip on the first two days of the year, I loved the scenery and experience so much that I included 4 pages of photos – breaking my own rule from the get-go…

LET’S GET STARTED

Take a look at me designing my pages using Canva…

WEEK 1 PAGE 2

I’ve chosen to kick off each week with an Ali Edwards Week Title text, so I required a 6×4″ image block on the top left. It is not necessary to use Ali’s text (I just do it to match previous photobooks I have made) – Canva has hundreds of fonts – you could choose one to adopt throughout yours to add consistency. Elements|Graphics|Roadtrip for the subtitle.

I adored numerous road and sky shots, prompting me to opt for a more panoramic format on the right-hand side. Screenshots and road signs serve as excellent tools for incorporating information into your pages. I’ve noticed that when I want to recall details of our travels, I often find myself revisiting my photobooks. This way, I can easily share recommendations with friends.

WEEK 1 PAGE 3

I just love these 3 panoramic photos, Elements|Grid – I have used this design many times and know it prints brilliantly. The heading says it all for me, as a couple of days before, we had no idea we were going to be galavanting all over the country…

Fonts: Canva’s Lato and CK Alis Hand free font – with white background – I’ll do a tutorial in future on how to add custom fonts into Canva.

LITTLE DID WE KNOW THAT WE WOULD BE JETTING DOWN TO CAPETOWN TO FETCH OUR “NEW SECOND-HAND CAR” ON THE 29TH DECEMBER 2023. TRISH MENTIONED SHE WAS TRADING IN HER CAR AND WAS GOING TO LOSE A LOT BECAUSE SHE WAS SELLING WITHIN THE FIRST TWO YEARS – IMMEDIATELY WE THOUGHT THIS COULD BE THE PERFECT FIT FOR US. “WE BUY CARS TOOK” OUR CAR IN JUST A DAY AND BEFORE WE KNEW IT WE WERE ROADTRIPPING. THE PLUS SIDE WAS SEEING ANRIETTE, ESTELLE, TRISH, SUE, JIMMY AND THE ALOCK CLAN AND FRIENDS. WHAT A SERENDIPITIUS TRIP AND A VERY SPECIAL WAY TO START THE NEW YEAR INDEED.

WEEK 1 PAGE 4

This page was quick – 8 photos Elements|Grid. I like that the middle photos show how tall the trees and plants are and that our bright clothing from the second day is on the right-hand side.

WEEK 1 PAGE 5

This page was the most time-consuming. 4x 6×4″ and 4x 3×4″ photos from elements|grids. I started with placing photographs, and writing text captions (copied from page 1) – I love that you can copy and paste from other pages and even other documents in Canva.

1. The quote was from Elements|Graphics|Thankful – changed to white
2. Elements|Graphics|List of 5
3. Elements|Graphics|Grateful
4. Card from Ali Edwards
5. Elements|Graphics|January – changed colour to red

I find it very useful to write my text in Apple Notes / Word document / Facebook ect and copy it across to Canva.

Ok that’s it, folks! Please feel free to subscribe to my YOUTUBE channel and follow both my Facebook and Instagram pages for more inspiration.