Make it Monday // DIY Digital Mantra Vision Board

I have been working on my vision planner (check out how I work in my Vision Planner here!) which also coincides with my first official year doing the One Little Word class by Ali Edwards.  The March prompt was all about vision boards.  But it was about vision boards in a different way.

I often think about a vision board as a (sometimes) cluttered mess of things you like all pasted onto poster board and then shoved into a spot in your room/office/home where you look at it...but it may not speak to you.  This idea has always frustrated me because I don't find order in that approach.  It wasn't until I watched a few vision board and goal setting style videos that I realized creating a vision board is a unique experience and should reflect the creator.  There isn't a one size fits all vision board.

And that is where my vision planner came in.

I have this guy divided up into some areas of my life I'd like to focus on all while keeping my word of the year Mindful in mind.  I also have sections for each of the One Little Word prompts and when I happen upon something that fits with in these prompts I roll with it an put that in there too!  I am not going to get too much into my vision planner sections right now...but the section I'm working on right now, today, with you is my spirituality section.  I hesitated to name it that all they way up until this blog post because I am not religious.  I see the word spirituality as a slippery slope into religion.  But I recently happened upon a free webinar by Alexis AKA Miss Trenchcoat called How to Manifest a Successful Astrological New Year and I realized that all signs are pointing to the things I'm becoming interested in - essential oils, meditation, working with crystals, etc - is culminating in a desire to explore my spiritual relationship with myself.  I can't deny it, I have to embrace it.  I've always been a believer in signs.  So I knew that this little section I'd originally called Wellness needed a better suited name if I was also going to start working with astrological signs and tarot.  Long story short - signs are pointing me to look inward, reflect, and work on discovering myself.

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So....February's prompt was to practice something everyday.  I didn't do it.  I didn't.  But March's prompt was to create vision boards regarding your word.  Ali suggested pulling a full page from a magazine and finding words that inspired you.  I thought I'd combine the two and create some vision boards with images I found that reminded me of my word and my intent and added some quotes that I could meditate on during the month.  Here's how you can make some mantra vision boards for yourself - make them as phone wall papers, computer backgrounds, or print them out like I did.

supplies // inspiring digital images, PicMonkey.com, card stock, printer

I highly suggest the images you use for this project be royalty free images and not images from Pinterest.  My favorite place for royalty free images is Unsplash.com.  It literally is like flipping through a digital magazine.  The best part is that you can search images by keyword.  I searched my word mindful but I also searched meditate, mindfulness, etc.  I looked into the collections as there were few results of images labeled with those words.  So just flip through and find images you like.  Save them to your computer or your device to work with later.

Find quotes or mantras you identify with.  In the original prompt, Ali suggested just trimming words form the magazines that inspired you.  They didn't have to directly reflect the word you've chosen for the year...just words that spoke to you.  I searched Pinterest for Mindfulness Quotes and created a board of the quotes I loved.

For this tutorial we're going to work with PicMonkey.com and their new(ish) Template Feature.  This is something rather new to me but it is super cool if you're not design inclined all the time.  The designs are premade for you - you just fill in the info!  Choose a template you like - keeping the size of the end result in mind -iPhone wallpaper, printed image, etc.  Once you've selected the template, right click on the main image to replace it with the image you've saved from Unsplash.

It is now that you can manipulate the text.  Try to choose a template that will fit your text/quote with out too much change.  That way you'll still get the feel of the template you chose.  This one with bold text supports a smaller quote.  If you find the color of the text doesn't really match the feel of the photo change it to better reflect your feelings.  I always choose either black or white to keep it simple.

Here is another example of a template I used - I liked the layout of the text but the end result doesn't resemble the original template.  You can see this one started off as an invitation but I changed it to be more poster like.  It is ok to start off with something interesting but change it up to fit your design aesthetic.

One of the new things I love about PicMonkey is the layers pane.  Not only are these templates pretty cool but the layer pane really helps you be precise with your designing.  You get more control with out the process becoming to complicated for the average user.  There are some special options & special templates that are available only if you're a Premium or the new Supremium customer.  While you can do a lot with this editor for free, these two subscriptions allow you to do more, more, more!  And work with the Hub feature that allows you to save your work!  How cool is that?  Learn more about the subscriptions here.

Now you're ready to print the mantra vision boards out or add them as backgrounds on your mobile device.  The way these guys work for me is something that I can reflect upon while meditating, something I can fall back on and repeat when I need the support, and words that I can work towards emulating in my everyday life.

You can also create these digital designs with various other tutorials I've shared on my blog - digitize your hand writing and use that as an overlay, use transparent clip art to add to your design, create these digital designs on your iPad with the Phonto app, or choose a few of these overlay apps to add to your mantras.

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What words do you use to help you meditate?  Have you created a vision board for yourself this year?

xoxo, Moe