How I Make My Moodboards

Good morning!! I am excited about today's post because I think you will really enjoy this! One of my most frequently asked questions is how I make my mood boards, specifically for the monthly wallpapers, but also just for my graphics. Today I am going to show you exactly how I do it! It is super easy and doesn't require any special programs.

I make all of my mood boards/graphics in Pages on my Mac. If you don't have a Mac, I'm sure you could do something very similar in Microsoft Word. Below you will find screenshots of various tools I use within pages to get the look I want! If something is unclear, please feel free to comment any questions in the comment section below and I will answer them there! I think that will be nice to keep all of these details in one spot!

Step 1: Page Setup

If you go to File > Page Setup, you can create a custom-sized sheet to work on. I created a custom size of 40 X 25 inches for my mood board and saved it as "BIG" so it's always easy for me to find and set. 

Honestly, for each mood board, I just make a copy of the last one and delete the images so I don't have to do this set up every time, but showing you so you know how to change the sheet size, it's the most important starting point!!

Step 2: The Overlay

This is a personal preference, but I love having a subtly tinted overlay on my mood boards to give all of the images a similar vibe. You probably don't explicitly notice this when you look at my mood boards, but it makes a big difference!

The pink sheer background you see is just a huge rectangle that I lowered the opacity on and changed the color. You can insert this by clicking on the "Shape" button at the top. When I am all done adding the images on the mood board, I go to the Arrange tab and set this to "Front" so everything gets a small tint with that color (helps everything blend together better), but throughout the process, I leave it in the back as to not mess with moving around my images.

Step 3: Text Boxes

There are two text boxes on every mood board: one for the month name, and one for the URL. In the January mood board, I added a big "2021" in the middle, but I used the same process described below:

Add a text box by clicking the "Text" button at the top. Go to the Arrange tab on the right > Text Wrap > "None". I have attached screenshots of some of my preferred typography settings, like character spacing, which is my favorite thing to mess with! To change/match colors I will click the color wheel to the right of the colored swatch, and then use the eyedropper tool to select a color from an image.

specific to the URL text box I just Arrange and align to the center bottom, and always leave it to "Front"

Step 4: Add and Arrange Images

To add images I just copy and paste them from Pinterest, and when I paste them, I go to Arrange > Text Wrap > "None". This is SO important. This makes sure I can move all of the images around freely without them having any issues/refusing to be near or on top of other images. Throughout the process, I will toggle with the "backward" and "forward" to get a layered look that I am happy with.

Step 5: Save + Export

I haven't figured out a single-step method to save and export the pages file straight to a JPEG, so here's a step-by-step of what I do to export, once I am happy with my mood board (showing you this on the Jan Mood Board so the February one is a surprise ;)

1. Go to File > Print; Select "Open in Preview" from the dropdown in the bottom left where the default says "PDF"

2. Preview will open the file automatically. In Preview, go to File > Export

3. Save the file wherever you want, select JPEG from the dropdown, slide the bar to "Best" quality, hit save, and you're done!

And that's it!! Let me know below if you have any questions!!

xoxo