It’s February. You’re still wearing the same fuzzy sweater for days and that new year’s resolution list you wrote at the beginning of the year hasn’t seen the light of day. The first month of 2020 has ended but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to start all over again and set your goals for the year. If you’re tired of creating a new year’s resolution list that ends up being unfulfilled or if you want to spice up a bare wall in your room or home, a vision board may be right for you.
Inspired by YouTube influencers Nadine Felice and Lavendaire with an added twist by me, this vision board allows you to define, outline and organize your big and small goals using pictures, cut-outs from old magazines and quotes without the overwhelming word list. In addition to the visual aesthetic it adds to a bare wall, it also becomes a decorative piece that constantly reminds you of what you need to do this 2020 as you wake up in the morning and sleep at night. You can use grid frames, a corkboard, a thrifted picture frame without its glass barrier or any flat, sturdy surface that can be hung up on your wall. If you prefer carrying this visual board around, then you can simply use a bullet journal or any notebook of your preference as the main surface of your vision board.
Let’s Get Artsy and Crafty!
Photo by John Mark Arnold on Unsplash
If you’ve got some old magazines and dog-eared newspapers lying around your house or accumulating underneath your bed, now’s the best time to put them to good and sustainable use. You’ll need scissors or, for precise and clean-cut images, a sharp box knife. If you’re using a corkboard, you can simply use sticky tacks or little pins for your images. You can also use alligator clips for those of you using grid boards. By going this route, you have all the freedom to move things around, replace images or add new ones. After all, our goals change every now and then.
I prefer using my old sketchbooks from years ago as my vision boards because I’m the type of person who loves looking back on my past goals and dreams. In addition, these collages could be recycled as decorative pieces that you could paste onto your next journal or hang up in a frame. By having a vision board inside a journal, you could carry it around and bring it out during moments of creative eureka moments, an activity that I love doing during class breaks.
At this point of the creative process, you can either prepare a pre-written goal list or create one as you browse through the available material you have. That way, you’ll have a draft of your vision board’s colour palette, style and layout. Having a Pinterest board with various images that evoke your 2020 goals or mood may serve as a time-efficient digital inspiration for this step. If you’ve got a home printer or a mobile printer like an HP Sprocket, you could also print your pinned or personal images and add them to your vision board right away.
Photo by Isabela Villanoy.
Why a vision board?
Now you’re probably wondering how this entire process can be meditative or relaxing. Well, while you’re cutting, hanging and clipping things, you could also blast your favourite album, binge watch a tv show or listen to a podcast, anything that relaxes you and takes you away from school and life stress. I usually watch Claire Saffitz’s genius cooking on Bon Appetit to appease my guilty food pleasures, listen to some soothing lo-fi hip hop music or wait for my face mask to dry up while working on my board.
I am an avid college enthusiast and a collector of paper trinkets that have sentimental value to me. You could say I’m a hoarder of paper Ephemera and thingamabobs but it’s all because I love creating visuals, juxtaposing images and words, putting things together and rewriting a whole new story out of the art I make. If you’re like me or if you’re thinking of trying something new this year, give this vision board a chance.
Since we live in an age of being on-the-go and rushing to the next deadline, activities like this allow you to destress, unwind and work your creative juices. Share the activity with friends and family and create one together if you want to! What I love about vision boards is that they can be both an individual and collective art that makes you discover new things about yourself and bring people together, respectively.
Vision boards are, in themselves, an art form because they evoke certain emotions during and after the creative process. They serve as a visual alarm clock without the looming pressure of doing it ASAP. They’re there to inspire and motivate you to do the little steps in achieving your 2020 goals while adding a touch of your personality to your space or journal.