This has been a week of creating a vision board and I thought I'd share a bit about the process. This one is an accordion-fold vision board that I can fold up as a book and take with me (when I travel, for example) or stand up in my office to look at and be inspired by when I'm home. I LOVE this new format!
This wasn't going to be a vision board week. It was going to be a catch up on my to-do list week. A taxes week (ugh!). And a clean the house week.
But the kids were both sick. I was sick. And the taxes definitely didn't want to be done (I asked politely).
So, instead, I browsed through magazines and cut out images of sunshine and birds, palm trees and art.
I administered doses of medicine and I made cup after cup of tea with honey for all members of the family.
And I kept on clipping words about spring and color, magic and healing.
Maia slept away an afternoon, curled up in a ray of sunshine. The words "walking pneumonia" were suggested when we went to the doctor's office...
Daphne worked beside me at the table, coughing and covered in a mysterious full-body rash, but undaunted as she filled paper after paper with color.
I arranged and rearranged images and words, weaving together layers of meaning that spoke to my soul.
I was on a mission I didn't even know I needed to be on.
Last week, I walked out of The Artist's Way course discussion about integrity in tears. The theme of this week's reading is possibility, which I find so wonderfully inviting.
Creating a vision board became a natural way to process what both of these mean for me.
I clipped phrases such as "show your true colors," "live life to discover," and "A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire, for the mind as well as the body" (a Ben Franklin quote) and found images of journaling, yoga, and birds. Slowly, slowly, the words and images came together and I pasted them into a double-sided accordion book.
I've been making vision boards for years and love the process. Love the product. This is the first time I've used the accordion book format, though. To create the base, I glued together sturdy file folders, which worked perfectly.
The accordion format was inspired by a book I picked up during my February blogging break called The Right-Brain Business Plan by Jennifer Lee.
With the subtitle of "A Creative, Visual Map for Success," I knew it was just the sort of business plan I needed could handle. While I didn't start out creating this particular vision board as a business plan, I found myself adding elements about my blog and my books.
For example, I have a little calendar taped onto one page (with washi tape!) to be filled in with blog tour dates and bookstore events.
I have ideas for tweaking my blog written on flip-up cards next to collaged words about making a difference through giving artful ideas.
And I jotted down a list of ideas for getting the word out about my new book on a card that slips into a pocket (envelope) taped to another page of the vision board.
All in all, this vision board is just the right mix of happy-making images and words that strike a chord with me as well as a motivating (yet loose) plan. And I just love how it folds up like a book to be flipped through and carried anywhere!
Or, unfurled along a shelf in the office to provide regular inspiration.... Here I have it standing before the wall-hung vision board I made at the beginning of the year.
Do you make vision boards? If so, I'd love to hear about your process!
Update: When I shared this post on my facebook page, Maya from MeMeTales said she made vision boards with her kids this year. I love her step-by-step post and plan to try this with my own girls soon!
