How to Make a Custom Word Search in Canva ｜ Step-by-Step Tutorial

Hey everybody, welcome back to Andrina's Creations. In today's tutorial, I'm going to be showing you how to create your own word search using Canva. Again, I do have Canva Pro. These word search, you can create them for graduation booklets, wedding booklets, Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, you name it. You can print them individually, add them to your party placemats, coloring books, activities, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Again, if you do create them, feel free to go ahead and tag me all around social media or join my free Facebook group, Andrina's Creations Crafting Lounge. So you can go ahead and post it because I would love to see them. So let's get started. All right, first things first, you need to go ahead and over to Canva. That is what I'm going to be using today. And then once you're inside Canva, I do want to point out that I do have Canva Pro. Of course you can use the free version, but I am using Canva Pro. First thing you're going to do is when you open up Canva, you're going to go to custom size. And then here you are going to decide what size of word search you want to print. Now, again, like I stated before, this could be made for anything. Today, I'm going to keep it simple and I'm going to do it on the 8.5 by 11. So the width is 8.5 and the height will be 11, of course in inches. And then I'm going to put create new design. Now you're going to go ahead and get a background. There is many ways of how to get a background. You can get a background from directly here from Canva. You can get a background from Pinterest, Etsy, Creative Fabrica, Google, Bing. Make one using AI. Please do not come with the AI slander under the comments. You can do whatever you want. I'm simply going to go to Pinterest and I am going to go ahead and type strawberry shortcake background. I'm going to go ahead and click on this one. And then I am going to click here on the three dots. I'm going to click download image. Once it's downloaded, I'm going to go here to the folder and I'm going to click on it. Sorry, make sure it's selected. And I'm going to go, make sure it's selected. And then I'm going to drag it into Canva. Once it's uploaded to Canva, you're going to see this circle filling up. And that means it's all the way filled. I am going to go ahead and upscale this image. So while it's selected, I'm going to go to edit and upscale. Once it's upscaled, I am going to go to these three. The image is selected. I'm going to click on these three dots and I'm going to put here with a set image as a background. As you can see, it's cutting off a lot of the image. So I'm just going to select it. And right here, where is the crop button? I'm going to click on it and I'm going to bring that just a little bit down, just like that. I'm going to click on done. Now I'm going to go ahead here where it says text. I'm going to click add a text box. I'm going to bring that to put it bigger and I'm just going to go ahead and type in it. Then I'm going to go ahead and unselect it, select it again. And then I'm going to go ahead and make that bigger. And I'm going to go here while my font is selected, while my word is selected, I'm going to go here where it says the font. And I'm going to go ahead and look for a font. I'm going to choose the pumpkin butter regular. I'm going to go ahead and change the color of it. And I'm going to, as you can see here, once you upload an image, you can also color match it. So I'm just going to go ahead and make it this color for now. And I'm going to go to effects and I am going to put a white outline on it. And I'm going to just make that a little bit bigger. And then when you move stuff here in Canva, you'll see lines popping up. That means you are centering your font or image or whatever you're adding. I'm going to go ahead and select that word again and duplicate. I'm going to double click it and type the word word search. I'm going to make that smaller and I'm going to go back here to the colors and I'm going to go ahead and change that to the color green. So far, this is how it's looking, okay? And this is just so you can set up your word search and you don't have to add a background. You can leave it white. You don't have to add images. You don't have to add anything at all. Now let's go ahead and create the actual word search. You need to come up with the words that you want to add to the word search. But let's go ahead and figure out where you're going to find the word search first. So you're going to scroll all the way down on your right and it's going to say apps. You're going to select that and up here where it says search, you are going to search activity maker and enter. And then the one with the puzzles is the one that you're going to select. And here you have ones that are already pre-made for you. Like if there's animals, countries, foods, colors, and hobbies, okay? I am going to enter my own. So we have to unselect all this. And like I said, you have to come up with your words, okay? So it says add one word per line. Make sure the number of letters for every word matches the numbers of rows or columns, which that means is when you scroll down and you click here on word search settings, you need to make sure that you select everything you want. The maximum numbers of words per puzzle. I'm okay with 12 words. You can go ahead and put more or less. You can go up like the numbers. The number of rows that you want, you can put more rows, less rows, totally up to you. And the number of columns. I'm going to leave everything just like how it is. And across or up and down that you want the words, diagonally and so on. You can just mark it and just play around with it, okay? Now, some people do like the grid lines and some people don't. I'm going to show you both, okay? So right here, you're going to type your 12 words. One word per line. Now, y'all know me and ChatGPT are best friends. So I went to ChatGPT and I said, give me 12 words I can use to add to a word search for Amira's third birthday. It's a strawberry shortcake theme. This is the 12 words it gave me. I just went ahead and copy, went back to Canva and paste. I'm playing no games. This one right here where it says pink, I'm going to change that to family, all right? And now I have my 12 words and I'm going to leave it with the grid lines so you can see it. And also it's going to give you an answer key as you will see once we generate. Going to scroll down and you're going to click on generate and boom, you have a word search just like that. Now I'm going to click here on add a page just so I can bring some stuff down. You can delete this one or you can keep it and go ahead and print it out so they can have the answer sheet. I personally don't use this one, so I'm going to delete it. And then I'm going to bring the words here to the side and this is my word search. Now I feel like the background is a bit too much. So I'm going to click on my background, the actual background with the checkers. And then I'm going to click here on transparency and I am going to bring that down just a bit or a lot bit, okay? Now I'm going to go ahead and click on my word search and make that bigger. And I am going to put these words right here on the side. All right, now next step I am going to do is because I do have a background and you're not able to see the word search, you can leave it like this but I'm going to add a white background or a white square behind this word search. So you're going to go up here on your right and I don't know why I keep saying right. I think I said that before. Guys, it's on your left, okay? Go ahead and click here on your elements and I'm going to go ahead and click on shapes and I am going to select a square and I'm going to put this square right there and match it with my word search, boom. Now I'm going to go ahead and color this probably a pink color, a light pink, just like this. And if you want to go lighter, you can click on the color wheel and go a little bit lighter if you choose to. All right, now while that square is selected, I'm going to go right here on the three dots and where it says layer, I'm going to send it backwards, just like that, all right? And I think I do want that a little bit lighter. So let's move this and go back to that color. And then these words right here, I am going to click on the bold symbol so I can bold. And then right here, I need to pull this so the word strawberry, it's on one sentence. And I'm going to go ahead and bring that there. I'm going to select this, go to the color font and I'm going to change that font as well, the color. I do want a deeper red. All right, now down here, I want to add some images. So I went back to Pinterest and then I searched up strawberry shortcake clipart. I'm going to select one, right click, copy image, go into Canva, right click and paste. And then it does have that background. So right here, it has the BG Remover. Now I know that it's a Canva Pro feature, but if you go to bgremover.com, it's free, all right? And then I went and found other images in Pinterest and it's already here on my upload. So I don't have to keep uploading that. So this was my next image and I'll have to remove the background. I do want her in front. So click on her layer and bring to front. All right, next is this puppy, BG, no. So this is what happens when I remove the background and put it like his skin transparent. So undo, and then let's go to edit while the image is selected. Go to see all and magic grab. Now I'm going to select on the puppy and this little area right here to select and I'm going to grab it. Now it comes off like this and I'm going to go ahead and delete that white background. All right, then I'm going to go back here to my left, click on elements. And then I am going to type a number three balloon, click on see all. When you are in element, now you have to remember that everything that has a crown belongs to the Canva Pro version, okay? Everything that does not have a crown is for the free version. Now I'm going to bring those baskets to the front. So the string of the number three is in the back. All right, and that's pretty much it. That's how simple it was to create a word search, y'all. That's it. If you do not want to create it with the grid lines, let's go ahead and create another word search so you can see for the same one. Go back to apps, go back to activity maker and the same words are here. So I'm going to go ahead and remove the grid lines and let's go ahead and generate one. So this is how it looks without the grid lines, just like this. So you see the difference? So it's all a preference. I don't know why that turned black. Also, if you do not want to put the words here on the side, what you're going to have to do is you're going to go ahead and duplicate this. Let me go ahead and zoom in a little bit. I don't know why it turns black when we zoom in. Don't ask me, I don't know. But when you zoom back out, it's there, okay? All right, so let's say I have 12 words, I want to do three columns, okay? So I'm going to select the first one and go ahead and delete everything and just leave four words, that's column one. Select this one and delete the top four. All right, so there you go. And then you select all three and go ahead and center them and you can also make them bigger. Let's go ahead and zoom out. And there's the difference on how you can put your words like this or if you want to put them like that, okay? And guys, I want to say thank you so much for watching to the end of this video. I told you guys this was going to be quick and easy. Like I said, they can be made for anything. This was a quick Halloween one that I made and all these elements, it did come from here from Canva. Also this one, I don't know why it keeps turning black, y'all, but look, if I zoom out, it's there, okay? You can go ahead and add an image to the actual word search. Are you guys going to be able to see that before it turns black? And no. Right here, you can add an image to the actual word search and you can design them however you want. Like I put this word search to the side, I put her images here and the words right here. Like I said, you can add more than 12 words. And how would you put an image to the word search and make it transparent? All you have to do is, I'm going to go ahead and get an element. Let's put strawberry and I'm going to click on see all. And let's put this one here. And I'm going to make it smaller and put it right here in the middle. And then right here where it says transparent, I'm going to bring that down and I'm going to go ahead to position and here to layers. And this is the strawberry, so I need to make sure it's behind the actual word search. And there you have it. See, it's transparent. All right. All right guys, go ahead and comment down below anything else you guys would like to see from me. I appreciate the continuous support and I'll see you on the next tutorial. Bye y'all.