If you are interested in decorating, chances are you’ve heard people talk about a mood board. Designers use them to give their clients an idea of the colors, textures and fabrics they plan to use. Why should you spend time making one?
The main reason is that it helps you focus on what you want a room to look and feel. But even more important that that, it keeps you from making snap shopping decisions that don’t fit the look you want. If you spend time coming up with a board it fixes the images in your brain.
I’ve always heard people talking about these but I never thought about doing one myself. When I moved into our house on Willis I decided to try it when I was trying to decide what to do with my bedroom.
First, I was looking for a rug, which I posted about here. I didn’t really know what colors I wanted to use and I had pretty unlimited options. My walls are grey, my bed is white upholstered. My curtains are white. It was pretty much a blank slate.
Where to start building your mood board.
1.) Take photos of furniture, rugs, curtains, lamps, etc. You want to get any of the large pieces that you plan to keep onto the board. If there is nothing in the room you plan to keep, don’t include these photos.
2.) Take a photo of your paint or get a chip off of the manufacturer’s web site.
3.) Get some things that you like on the board for inspiration. This can be anything. For example, if you are trying to choose fabrics that you may use for a curtain or pillows, put a snap shot of the fabric on board. I found chairs and baskets I like at target and took a photo of them by capturing a screen shot.
4.) I do like to surf on Pinterest for images that I like BUT this can be an infinite time suck. Are there images that I would love to copy? Yes, but the problem is that are too many. I can’t seem to narrow it down to one or two. If you have one or two images on Pinterest that are the look you want to achieve, include those.
How to Make Online Mood Board
My favorite tool that is free and soooo much easier than photoshop is PicMonkey. I’ve also tried Canva and I like it, but once you get to know a program you tend to stick with it.
In PicMonkey you can choose a template that exists already or make one from scratch. I started with a pre-made one that had 9 squares. Once you click to edit it you can delete all of the images by clicking on each one in the “layers” rectangle and moving it to the trash.
Next start dragging in images that you’ve saved. You can resize them as you go by just dragging the corners. They can overlap. You can also make the most important ones come to the forefront by clicking the arrows right under the layer tab.
Make a Physical Mood Board
You can easily make a physical mood board by getting a bulletin board and clipping magazine photos and fabric samples to it. This can often be a more accurate way to see fabrics and paint, but you can’t take it shopping with you.
Have you tried making a mood board? This was my first time and I have to say it really helped. Stay tuned for a tutorial on how to use PicMonkey in my next post.
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