The Deckle and Vintage frame templates in the Family Quick Book will help you quickly create pages for a family heritage book. Let me demonstrate how to use the templates on Canva.com, the free online design site.

Deckle Frames

Once you log in to Canva, click on Custom dimensions in the upper right corner and enter the dimensions you’re using for your book. The Family Quick Book papers come in 3 sizes: 12 x 12 inches, 8.5 x 11 inches, and 11 x 8.5 inches, so you can choose one of those sizes for an exact fit, but you can also choose a different size.

My book is 10 x 10 inches, so that’s what I’ll enter. Be sure to choose inches instead of pixels! Click Create new Design.

And here we are in the editor. You don’t have to add a title to the page but if you want one hover over the Page number and click to add a title. I’ll call this ‘First Baby’ and click on the desktop to commit the change.

The first thing you’ll want to do is click on Uploads over on the left and upload the photos, background paper, and frame templates you plan to use for your page, which I’ve already done

Click on the paper to add it to your page. If you need to resize it, press Alt (Mac: Option) and click and drag from a corner handle to resize all four corners at the same time. Or you can drag from any corner to resize proportionately. Click on the desktop to commit the change.

Click on a deckle template to add it to your page. Click and drag from a corner handle to resize it, and click and drag inside the outline to reposition it. Click on the desktop to commit the change.

Click on a photo to add it to your page. While your photo is still active, click on Position in the Tool Bar and choose Backward to move the photo below the frame. Resize the photo using a corner handle to maintain the original proportions.

You can’t click inside the frame to move the photo because that just activates the frame. I’ll press Ctrl Z (Mac: Cmd Z) to undo that and this time I’ll click on the photo and get it positioned correctly.

Once you get the photo positioned where you want it…and I’ll use my Arrow keys to move that up just a little bit…then you’ll want to click and the side handles and drag them toward the frame to get them behind the frame. Click on the desktop to commit the change.

To move the photo and frame together click and drag from outside the frame over the frame and photo to select them and then you can move them together.

For this page I want two frames the same size. To duplicate a frame click on it to activate it and then click Copy in the Tool Bar in the upper right corner. Click and drag the frame to a new spot and commit the change.

Add another photo the same way you added the first one. To select both frames so you can reposition them click outside the frames and drag across both frames and photos to select them, and them move them and commit the change.

Here I added a third photo using a horizontal deckle frame and I added my title, subtitle, and journaling. If you need to brush up on how to work with type or want to learn more about Canva, watch the video series I did called Family History Book on how to use Canva.

Here’s one more tip on how to adjust the background paper. For example, I’d like it a little darker so the deckle frames stand out better.

Click on the paper to select it and click Adjust in the Tool Bar. I’ll move the Brightness to the left, and the Contrast to the right and the Saturation to the right and now my deckle frames stand out very nicely!

Work with the vintage frames in the same way. Add your paper…add your frame…and add your photo.

So that’s how to work with the deckle and vintage frames when creating pages for a family heritage book!