Inspiration Board

Lea

I’m not into the inspiration board thing either. I’ve seen some pretty photos of some, and I like the concept of one… But actually trying to implement it… Well, I tend to be a perfectionist (ok, really just anal sometimes) and it would take me more work than it’s worth trying to make the “perfect” one, and that’s totally missing the point.

I like yours though :)

Brigite

Nicole – Your inspiration board makes me happy. Making your board you desktop wallpaper is such a good idea! I’m going to do that on my personal laptop as soon as I get home. Since my board was stolen from collections around my house, I’m not going to be able to keep it intact, but I hate to “lose it,” even though I have a picture of it.

Allison

I hear ya. I started on a vision board at the beginning of January, visually mapping out all the goals that I’d like to accomplish this year, and I’m still working on it. I’m convinced that I have to find the perfect images. I haven’t even gotten to assembling it because I’m still working on the pictures!

Georgianna Lane

I commented over at Flickr, too, but just wanted to say I really love this, the energy, colors and themes are wonderful!

Linley

Oh perfectionism! I used to have a collaged bulletin board, but it ended up looking too messy to stay. Instead, I pinned five ribbons running horizontally and use mini clothespins to attach 3-4 pictures per ribbon (the pictures are all printed with no borders, most the same size). Much better for me!

Syd

I have an inspiration board, which coincidentally is a bulletin board. I really dig it.

I just rearranged it yesterday. I like to put things on it that remind me of my goals. I have art, post cards, quotes, a painting I did, a list of goals (heh) and photos, specifically of my ultrasound. I rearrange it regularly. It’s not permanent. I keep it till it becomes stale and then infuse it.

Yours is much more colorful and collage like. It’s very pretty and I love the idea of photographing it and using it as a desktop. That could solve some of the impermanence of my own.

Michelle

It’s funny too, because once a month I would make a digital collage for my desktop just like above, but that to me became very cluttery and distracting versus the board above my desk. We must be similar but opposites ;)

leslie

I love your post and am giggling away to myself because I too cannot deal with my own inspiration boards! That is why I never use glue, I photograph them and I immediately take the pieces apart. I find the act of putting the stuff together fun and creative and yes, inspiring but they really act more like those sand mandalas -poof -they are gone in minute. I like your screen saver idea and you do raise a good point as I do like to look back on the photos…just not the actual stuff.

joanna of simple blueprint

love your board! love all the color! such a fun assignment, don’t you think. happy monday, Joanna (BYW)

Amy

love the inspiration board used as a desktop wallpaper. I actually have an inspiration board but I hardly ever update it. Most of my ideas and inspirations just make it to an ideas folder on my computer.

Laurie

I’m an inspirational user with my trusty corkboard, I use it all the time when I start a new room, I also do a digital one but I guess I’m old school and like my corkboard, its easy to change up and look at whenever I want to change or move around!

Emily Gerson

I completely understand, I don’t even get to the point of cutting things out (I love my magazines too much).
Maybe the point is that as you do it you enjoy the process (do you?), I can see it being creative and theraputic :D
It looks lovely, just treat it as scrapbook page and put it away, in a few years you’ll pull it out and wonder how much your taste has changed.
Emily x

Ana

Hahaha, I’m not much of an inspiration board kind of gal either. I tend to hang things wherever I can when I want to look at them, but if I put them all together they also look like clutter to me.

Megan

I keep an inspiration “scrapbook”. I really like using these books because they are simple and pretty and you can also get refill pages for them.

http://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/color/Newport-11-x-14-Photo-Album/3203.010/913.html

I would love to keep my magazines, but with about 10 magazine subscriptions, the piles just get too high too fast – plus I love to organize the pages by color, room, etc.

becky

I agree about sketchbooks – I think they count as “boards” – even though semantically I suppose that is not true!

Sandra

I’m with you. Not inspired by inspiration boards. Project boards, on the other hand, rather rad.

Alex

Pretty board! (I love the girl holding the valentine!)

I’ll be the lone voice that is somewhat “pro” inspiration boards! Keep in mind they are only as cluttered as you make ’em. I’m a very visual person and find it hard to work in a stark/pristine environment. For me it’s less about a proper “Inspiration Board” and more about surrounding myself with colors and visuals that make me happy. I have an inspiration “shelf” where I have a rotating collection of pretty things for me to look at while working (could I say the word “inspiration” any more times in this comment?? haha. Sorry!). In my office at work I have lots of visuals tacked up on the wall as well.

It’s def fun to see what people come up with—everyone has such a different take and a diff way to reflect their style!

Here’s my crazy board:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22848658@N00/4334088178/

Valerie

I’m with Alex, I also make my inspiration board, which is more of a Vision board I now realize, a pot pourri of goals and things I want for the starting year. I think the key to a good inspiration-vision board is when you look at it, you can already feel that it’s part of yourself, that you already have it all, it’s just that the moment hasn’t passed yet (is this sounding weird?)

This year I hosted a vision-board party (with cupcakes and Champagne!) at my Studio, a fun way to thanks clients, friends and myself and dream of the upcoming year.

You can have a glimpse of it here:
http://blog.roseflash.ca/2010/02/inspiration-board-2010/

Patricia

Ah I can totally relate! I do it for putting rooms together at home and convincing my boyfriend to let me buy the green couch or that the red buffet looks good with the rug, but now that I’m planning our wedding and trying to get a mood board together I don’t know where to start!!!

Reagan

A thought occurred to me as I was reading this thread: you could probably give away your “inspiration board.” (Keep the digital copy for your desktop, obviously, and for your reference. But give the actual paper copy away to a reader.) Like you, I find my board to be cluttered, but, also like you, I like looking at the boards other people put together.

Seriously, Nicole, there are almost certainly people reading this would would be honoured to have a Nicole Balch original. It could be a regular feature!

Melinda

I love the idea of mood/inspiration boards and have been procrastinating about making one for a long while. At the moment I have folders where I have sorted all of my inspiring pics by room or category (a little anal I know).

I was inspired by this lovely mood board posted by Viv at Ish & Chi yesterday (http://ishandchi.blogspot.com/2010/02/inspiration.html) and after seeing yours as well, I think I’ll actually get mine done this weekend (it’s supposed to rain all weekend here in Sydney, Australia anyway).

Jessie

I wasn’t sure what to do with mine now that I’ve finished the board (I need my little embroidery scissors back!). I love the idea of using it as desktop wallpaper!

Ameya

AH! That’s a good idea! I’ve wanted to make one but I knew I wouldn’t want to hang it up anywhere.. but the desktop idea is perfect! :D

Laura Gaskill

Ha! I do know what you mean about inspiration boards, especially done collage style they can feel a bit messy or something. I like keeping them in journals or folders :) But you did such a wonderful job really capturing the aesthetic of Making it Lovely! And that *is* a great idea to use it as desktop wallpaper :)

Lizcupcakes

Is that a cupcake I spy? How long would the cupcake wrapper keep if you decided to keep it? :P

Lauren

Nicole – Do you happen to know the source for the sofa in your inspiration board?

May

Desktop wallpaper’s a great idea, Nicole. I’ve been making collages for my wallpaper for years. I save tons of inspiring photos, group them by colour and then add family photos and my own graphics and voila – a personalize wallpaper :) It’s a good way to display what you love without having to choose a single image, or cluttering up you space.

Aprill

I like inspiration boards but not an actual real-lfe one that just ends up becoming a part of the clutter. I can get behind digital versions, though.

.amanda.

I am an art teacher for an elementary school and I firmly stand being the idea that “its the process not the product”

I’m glad you had a good time making it and that you felt great doing it! It doens’t have to be FOR something. :)

xo

pink

Dang, girl. I’d throw it into a shadow box and hang it on the wall or in the bathroom. I think it’s really cool, but then I’m weird about what I hang up. You can send it to me – I’ll take care of it (it is pink, after all), haha.

MelanieO

I feel exactly the same way. It was (sort of) fun putting it together, but I don’t know what to do with it. I like having files and putting stuff together temporarily, but my purpose is usually for a blog post. I don’t know why, but I always feel I need a purpose for the finished product. Maybe I need to go back to grade school to learn how to do things just for the process of doing it, like one of your other commenters suggested :)

The Design Notebook

I love your inspiration board!

becky

I’m looking at this for the second time after about a week, and honestly, I don’t think you applied the eye you usually have digitally to this handmade board in any manner whatsoever (not trying to be a hater, just responding to the fact that you don’t like inspiration boards).

I think it helps to bend your brain (I’m a total photoshop ho so I can relate) to do things in the old school inspiration board way and step out of your comfort zone. I’ve never seen something so busy with this lack of clean composition on your blog (been reading it since you began and usually love your eye and style). It’s almost like the neopolitan background says enough about you without all the crapola just thrown on top? I suppose I can see doing it that way in some kind of new agey life coach kind of way (ugh – of course I’d be dissing that kind of inspiration board the way you are dissing them here), but for me it helped to think about composition, and later, about what I had picked and what it meant to me. Did you play with rearranging things in different ways? I just left mine out on my coffee table all day and kept messing with it, adding and subtracting and rearranging.

Honestly, we all know how talented you are, and how busy you are, so it seems very obvious that you said “oh crap, gotta turn in this homework, let me throw everything on my desk on top of this paper and then talk about how I don’t like inspiration boards.” Which is fine, but I think if you’d spend time on it you would have really gained something from the experience. I say this constructively because I love your eye, and I think if you gave it time you’d come up with something great.