Have you ever wondered how I create my thumbnails, colorful blog images, and business logos? I use a type of software that’s available to everyone who has internet access, and the software is actually free: Canva!

Today’s blog post is a simple announcement with a helpful tip for those of you out there who are small-business owners, making doll clothes and selling them online.

Or maybe you just want to learn how to make Instagram posts that look pretty with little animations and graphics.

Or maybe you’d like to design a business logo to attach as a watermark on your doll clothes photos.

Or maybe you want to learn how to add graphics to your own website.

Or maybe you also design doll clothes patterns, but you want to know how to make them into a PDF quickly and easily.

This list of possibilities could go on, but I want to keep today’s blog post short and sweet. So here’s the thing…

Yes, there’s a paid version of Canva (which I use), but there’s a lot you can do with the free version of Canva to make your business look sharp online.

If you’ve ever seen one of my older tutorial videos, you’ve probably run across the thumbnails and graphics I used before I was introduced to Canva. They looked like this:

Now compare that to the graphics I’m creating in Canva today:

Let me show you, again, the graphic I posted at the top of this page. All of the images in this showcase were created using Canva, including my new Chelly Wood business logo.

And there’s so much more!

If you’d like to learn how I build my graphics, consider taking this class along with me, on March 23rd.

Now let me be clear… I’m not teaching this class; I’ll be TAKING this class. And today’s blog post is not a paid promotion, I’m just sharing the love.

Canva was introduced to me by my oldest daughter, Emily Teapot, who just finished a marketing degree at Idaho State University. She used Canva to help me re-design my business logo, and she showed me how to use this simple software to build my graphics.

Here’s a photo of my daughter, back when she was in high school. She was modeling a scarf and hat, which I have tutorials and patterns for here on my website (click the links to see them):

In college, she used Canva to help build logos and update the website for the Idaho State University Career Center. She could see that I was struggling to find enough time on my weekends, to renovate my website, which was starting to look clunky next to bigger, better websites.

So one afternoon, when she came home for a visit, she spent an hour showing me how to use Canva.

Once that ball was rolling, here’s how her one-hour introduction helped me out:

• I can now make my PDF’s much more quickly and efficiently
• I can now create thumbnails in a fraction of the time it used to take me
• I can easily attach my logo to any image, including my own photos
• I can use Canva to build planners, calendars, graphics, and more

So think about taking the class with me! I mean, why not? It’s free, right?

Here’s a link to the Canva course. You just need your name and an email to join. It’s taking place online, on March 23rd.

If you want to try Canva for free beforehand, you can start a free account here. But you don’t have to have an account already, to take the class. You can just join the class as an observer and decide later.

Hopefully I’ll see you there!

For those of us who do take the course, let’s all come back to this blog post and leave comments. Let me know what you got out of the course and how it will help you with your business or hobby goals!