Did you know that you can turn your watercolor art into digital stickers for Goodnotes? I searched high and low for a tutorial and decided to create one so others could benefit!
We will discuss how to create your watercolor images, upload them to Canva, and put them in Goodnotes. I am also going to share how you put them on Etsy to make a side income!
Let’s Talk About It!
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Creating Your Watercolor Images
I love making 60-second TikTok videos of a watercolor demo. When I do this, I create single small paintings. Usually my cold-pressed watercolor paper is about 3″ x 4″.
I just tear my watercolor paper in half, those halves in half, and one more time. I tear them instead of cutting because I love the deckled edge tearing it gives. (Deckled edges are paper with an imperfect cut that creates feathery edges)
I mostly watercolor florals, or seasonal items, like bunnies, different flowers, mushrooms, or whatever my mood is that day for those videos.
Uploading Your Digital Stickers For Goodnotes To Canva
Before you upload your digital stickers for Goodnotes to Canva, you must take photographs of them. I found the best way is to scan them. I have an iPhone and I use Notes to scan them and transfer them to my photos. You could also use your scanner on your printer if you have one.
When you scan in your watercolors, it gives a clean white background. If you take a regular photo, sometimes the background is dark as well as the image itself. I find that it gives a crisp clean image when scanned properly.
Once you have all of your watercolors uploaded to your photos, it is time to head on over to Canva. If you are not familiar with Canva, My friend, Pam, offers a great membership to learn and grow in your Canva skills. Check her out!
Please note that you WILL need Canva Pro to complete this project.
In Canva, upload all of the watercolor images you have in your photos that you want to create digital stickers for Goodnotes.
You will want to create a design – custom size. I did squares of 1000x1000px. On each page, bring over one image. Use background remover to make it transparent. (Note – if you have a lot of white in your watercolor, they may also be removed.) If you have issues with areas that are removed or excess items you don’t want in your transparency, you can edit the photo and use the magic eraser.
Do this same thing with each of your photos on their own pages. You can also resize the image to fill the square. I find that it is the best practice.
Once that is completed, it is time to download those images. You want to save them as a png and transparent background. Download all pages and they will turn into a zip file. Make sure you place them in a file you can find, so name your file before downloading it.
Go ahead and unzip that file, so you are ready for Goodnotes.
Transferring Them To Goodnotes
Let’s head over to Goodnotes. Open your app and click on the New + icon, then Notebook and it will open up to a new screen.
You want to have a blank background and it shows a basic cover, but you can design that later if you choose. Click on create and a new notebook will open.
As far as the cover, if you are selling your stickers on Etsy, you will want an attractive cover. If you have created a watercolor image, you can add that to your cover once you open your new notebook. Show off your watercolor skills with a cover that matches what you are creating.
Now that your notebook is open, you will want to open your files on a split screen because you will be dragging them over one by one. I was not able to drag them all at once. You can try, but it did not work for me.
As you can see by the image below, they are already cropped which is nice. You can resize them using the icon on the bottom right of the cropped image.
Once you drag them all over to the new paper, you can organize them the way you want them to be presented. You can fit many images here. If you are fancy, you could go back to Canva and create days of the week, numbers, and any other icons to add.
For the sake of this post, I just went with the basics. Once you have all of your images transferred over, it’s time for the next step.
Now you can transfer them into a Goodnotes file. In the upper right-hand corner, you will see an upload icon. Click on that and you will see a pop-up that says Export This Page or Export All. If you want the entire notebook (cover and if you have multiple pages) press Export All.
After that another pop up will be there and you want to press Goodnotes – see the circled image below. Once you do this, make sure you place it in a file you know where you will find it.
I like to have my files named for particular items, so I have a Goodnotes sticker file just for these. Staying organized with your files is the best practice to save time looking for them.
You are almost finished! Now it’s time to put the items back into your Goodnotes and give them a test run!
Testing Your Product
Let’s make sure they work! You will go back to your Goodnotes and export a file. Locate your stickers as it will have Goodnotes at the end since it is saved as a Goodnotes file. Import them back into your Goodnotes and try them out!
I love the fact that I can use my very own watercolors to decorate my Goodnotes planners. I also create digital planners and sell them on Etsy. What I love about my digital planners is that I have begun to use my watercolors as background sheets as shown below.
I made a video showing how you can turn your watercolors into patterns for note paper or digital planners! It’s super easy and fun!
Selling On Etsy
If you want to sell your watercolor digital stickers for Goodnotes on Etsy, you will want to make sure all your images are cropped and ready to be used. You also want to make sure they are of good quality, meaning not blurry and cleaned up from any splashes or imperfections.
You will also want an attractive cover as stated earlier in this post.
Be sure to check with competitors so your pricing is on par as you will not want to sell too high or too low. Never undercut yourself.
I like to check out what others have to offer and how I can make it different or better, and I love the fact that I can use my hand-painted graphics for my products.
You will also want to be sure you do the test run of your items. That is important as you don’t want unhappy customers!
If you do not have an Etsy shop, you can use this link to get 40 free listings if you open up your very own digital store!
For more information on opening an Etsy shop, Amanda Dunbar has a great membership for you to join. She has a course to walk you through the whole process of opening an Etsy shop.
Now that you know how to create digital stickers for Goodnotes, I hope you start painting with your watercolors and see how you can either make them just for you or sell them for some added income!
For a video version of this post, please visit my YouTube page! Please note that I was having issues when I created this video, my screen sharing was a bit blurry but I wanted something on YouTube as I had such a time trying to find a tutorial on how to do this as I have wanted to create my watercolor clipart for some time now.
You can also check out Creative Fabrica as well to be a seller of your watercolor clip art! You will want to be sure the dpi is 300, but you can achieve that in Canva.
For more tips on watercolor, please join my Facebook Group – Watercolor Tutorials and Inspiration!
Stay Colorful, Stay Creative, and HAVE FUN!
~Laurie
