It feels like vision boards are all the rage lately, and I’m 100% here for this trend. Vision boarding is great for so many reasons: it’s a productive pastime, a fun activity to do by yourself or with your friends, it helps you visualize your future, and can bring a lot of positive energy to your life. We all need more of that!!
Getting started can be overwhelming, though. How do you make it look good? How do you find pictures you like, and once you do, how do you fit them all?? How do you do it without wasting a ton of paper??? A couple of weeks ago I decided that I needed a vision board in my life so, with all these questions in mind, I set out to make one. I started with the intention of making a physical one, but I realized that a) I didn’t want to waste a ton of paper; b) I didn’t have the time to invest in cutting and pasting a bunch of stuff; and c) I’m moving soon, and I’d rather not deal with the hassle of trying to move it. So instead, I decided to make a digital one! Yay for technology!
I want to note that, eventually, I do want to have a huge physical vision board, because I like the idea of having it as a piece of room décor as well. Plus, I think that having something physical as a part of your environment that inspires you is really beneficial. But for now, my iPhone lock screen is doing the trick.
Here are the steps I took to create my vision board:
- Choose your color scheme
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If you’re like me and want your vision board to be aesthetically pleasing, I recommend going with a color scheme. I’m into the whole pink aesthetic vibe right now, so that’s what I went with! Later on, when I started looking for filler images, I literally typed “pink aesthetic” into Pinterest, which helped me create a whole ~vibe~.
- Set your intentions
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What do you want your vision board to depict? Take some time to think about what you really want in your life, whether it’s in the near future or long-term. Personally, I want to focus on starting my career and traveling as much as possible. I also want to work on being more confident and loving myself. The intentions that you set will ultimately help guide you in choosing your images.
- Select your images
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When looking for images, go back to the intentions you set. Like I said, I want to work on my career and traveling, so a lot of the images I picked are of places I want to work and visit. For example, I want to work in the fashion industry, so I picked a Vogue cover as one of my pictures. I also have pictures of London, Paris, and Italy, because those are on my 2020 travel bucket list. Next, pick some quotes that align with what you want your board to convey. I found a quote that says, “My self worth is not determined by others,” and another one that says, “Better an oops than a what if.” Both of these, among others, were perfect for the vibe I was going for
I filled in the spaces with images of things that I feel align with my personal “brand,” and things that make me happy. I found pictures of my style icons, cars that I want to own one day, beautiful coffee spreads, jewelry that I love, etc. These are things that aren’t necessarily goals but are still parts of the life that I want.
Because I originally wanted to make a physical one, I headed straight to Pinterest to find the perfect images. Pinterest has a new download feature which is a huge help if you’re doing this from your phone! You can also drag images to your computer desktop and then compile them in a Word doc if you want to print it out and make a physical board.
- Put it all together!
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If you’re doing a physical board, I recommend picking up a cork board and some cute pushpins or tacks. Then, arrange all of your images in a Word doc, print them out, cut them up, and pin them!
Since I decided to do a digital version, I used the app PicsArt, which makes it super easy to make collages. I started with a plain pale pink background, then started to add in my images. From here, it’s just a matter of arranging them in a way that looks good to you! My final product has tons of images overlaid on each other. I tried to space out different themes so that everything is spread out evenly.
One fun trick is to use the cutout tool, which lets you erase unwanted parts of an image. For example, I had a picture of Hailey Bieber, my personal fashion icon, but I couldn’t find anywhere that the entire image looked good. So, I cut out just her body, and that fit perfectly between a quote and a picture of Italy! I also had a cute saying that I wanted to put in, but if I put the entire image in, it would’ve taken up a ton of room. My solution was to just cut out the words, which I overlaid on top of a few pictures. You can still see the images underneath, but the quote stands out, so it’s the best of both worlds!
- The final product
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Here’s my finished product! There are probably around 20 images in mine, all from Pinterest. I did a lot of adjusting and moving around to make sure that each one was in the right position because I wanted it to feel balanced as a whole. There is really no right or wrong way to do this – some people might prefer theirs to be neater, or messier, or more colorful, or less colorful. It is completely up to personal preference because, at the end of the day, this is a reflection of you!
Vision boarding can be daunting, but it doesn’t need to be! If you use the right tools and find the right images, it comes together seamlessly. This is such a good way to de-stress and to inspire yourself, so I highly recommend it for anyone who feels in need of some good vibes in their life!