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picture collage
picture collage
Original photo by Julia Olkin
Style > Decor

How to Make Your Own Wall Collage

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UVA chapter.

I’m sure you’ve seen those wall collages all over Pinterest and TikTok. They look so cute and such a great way to decorate your room, and maybe you’ve decided that you want one. You look them up, since people are selling them off of Etsy or similar sites, only to realize they’re pretty expensive. Then, you change your mind and give up on the idea…OR you could make your own, just like I did! It’ll definitely take a good amount of time, depending on how big the space you want to cover is, but I can say it was definitely worth it, especially since I did it for under $10 compared to spending $70+! Here’s how to do it:

Figure out how many pictures you want total.

I decided on 75, which ended up covering a lot of the area above the length of my bed.

Decide on the theme/color of your photos.

You can pick a color you want to be the “main” color of the photos you choose (but of course you can stray from this!), and maybe a general theme or “vibe.” However, this is also something you figure out as you go and find photos you like. Do some research and look around to see what other wall collages you like!

Head to Pinterest!

You can use whatever site you want of course, or even Google, but for this project, I found that Pinterest worked the best! You can also include some of your own photos, which is what I did. I even edited them to match my theme!

This step definitely took me the longest. Search terms also become important here! For example, for my board, I took inspiration from some other boards and knew of some types of photos I wanted to include, so I searched things like “floral drawings,” “pink quotes,” and even just “pink aesthetic.” I also included some Bible verses, pics of my favorite singers, and some more scenic photos as well. You can really include whatever you want to and truly personalize it!

Save/download the photos one by one.

Click to save the photos of your choosing from Pinterest (or wherever you found them), and save them to your laptop. This part can be a little tricky, and it can take up some time too, and here’s why. I found that when you head over to CVS.com (or other places where you can print photos, such as Walmart.com), a lot of my photos seemed to have too low of a resolution and therefore, wouldn’t turn out good if I printed them as they were. Here’s what I did to get around this: Once I saved the photos, I went into the photo’s settings and adjusted the resolution by hand. On a Macbook, I clicked on “Adjust Size,” and then typed in 200 pixels/inch as the “Resolution.” This is a little tedious, since I had to do it for most, if not all, my photos, but if you’re willing to put in the effort, your pictures will definitely turn out way better!

Head to CVS.com or Walmart.com and upload the photos to print!

You can choose what sizes you want each of the photos to be. It’s the cheapest to do all 4×6”, so that’s what I did, but feel free to mix it up if you’d like! You can also get your photos shipped or pick them up at the nearest store.

Hang them up!

Once you have all your photos, you finally get to hang them up. You can arrange them however you want and play around until you get it the way you like!

Enjoy your new wall collage! :)

Julia is a second-year at the University of Virginia majoring in Speech Communication Disorders, and she plans on becoming a pediatric speech-language pathologist. In her free time, she loves hanging out with her friends and playing sports (mostly basketball and soccer). She's also addicted to shopping and bingeing the same shows on Netflix (Gossip Girl and Jane the Virgin are some of her favs!). She enjoys writing as a creative outlet and hopes you like her articles!
Nikki is a fourth year and a Biology major at the University of Virginia. Her loves in life include reading, animals, and cookies! Writing is one of her creative outlets and she hopes you enjoy her articles as much as she enjoys writing them!