Pinterest is a great place to organize and find inspiration for your ideas based on themes. Maybe you’re thinking about sprucing up your home or office with new wallpaper or DIY home decor. Parties and the holidays are also great reasons to get creative in the details. Below we show you how to set up a free Pinterest account and start pinning those ideas down for your next great project.
Note: This post has been updated in 2023 to reflect changes in Pinterest.
Why Should You Create a Pinterest Mood Board?
A mood board is a creative exercise to organize ideas into one place and focus on a theme. Collecting photos, quotes and videos on a single board provides a visual to your concept. It can also keep you motivated and help guide your project from start to finish.
Is a Mood Board the Same as a Vision Board?
Not necessarily. A mood board can be a great help for a specific project or design, like redoing a bedroom or creating a collection of patterns with a ‘70s theme. It helps keep things in focus. A vision board can be a helpful way to envision a goal you want to achieve—like moving or starting a career.
The process to creating a mood board and a vision board are similiar. They both can be created using the steps below, and tweaked for your intended outcome, large or small!
How Do You Find A Theme?
Your theme may be closer than you think. The best way to decide on a theme is to think about the type of project you are planning to start. What words come to mind related to the project? What colors? This will help you start looking into the elements and details you’d like to incorporate in your work.
With your idea and the internet at your fingertips, you can begin by finding images that compliment your budding theme. And where could you save and organize all of these great things? A Pinterest mood board!
What Tools Do You Need To Create a Pinterest Mood Board?
A Pinterest account; a mobile phone, tablet or computer to connect to Pinterest; and an idea!
How Much Time Will It Take?
As much time as your project (or creativity!) allows.
What Are the Steps to Create a Pinterest Mood Board?
1. Log Into Your Account.
Go to Pinterest and click the button in the far right corner to “log in” or “sign up” for an account.
Once you’ve entered your email and password, go to your profile page. To do this, look for a circle to the top far right. When you hover you mouse over it, it should say “your profile.”
2. How to Create a Pinterest Board.
Once you’re on your profile page, click the plus sign (+) to the far right. Give your board a name and you’re good to go!
3. How to Pin Images to Your Board.
It’s time to start pinning! Circle back to those questions we mentioned earlier and put your answers in the Pinterest search bar. This will prompt the site to bring up related “pins.”
When you find a pin you like, hover over it and click “save.” If you have more than one mood board, make sure you’re saving pins to the correct board. Your most recently used board should be at the top of your list.
4. How to Pin Images You Find Outside of Pinterest.
If you find something outside of Pinterest that’s perfect for your board, you can add it to Pinterest by creating a pin for it. To create a pin, follow the same steps you took above to create a board, except select “Create a Pin.” Click the option to “Save from Site” and enter the web address. You will be prompted to select the images related to the link you want to use and can add a title and description. Select the board you’d like to add this pin to and publish.
Pro Tip:
5. How to Add Idea Pins
Idea Pins are a great and unique way to share inspiration. They are multi-page links in one pin that further group an idea together. They’re similar to Instagram Story Highlights, in that they include multiple pictures or videos as one piece of content. With that being said, when you save an Idea Pin you must save the entire video or photo compilation, not just one section. Learn how to create Idea Pins here.
6. How to Delete Unwanted Pins.
Not all pins make the final cut—and that’s okay. At first when you create a mood board, it can be helpful to pin lots of ideas! However, for some projects once you’re past the ideation stage, you might want to pare things down. If you see that you need to remove some pins it’s pretty easy. Click on the pin you want to remove and select “edit pin”. To the bottom left of the window you can click “delete”. Warning, once you’ve deleted a pin, it cannot be undone.
7. How to Invite Collaborators to Your Pinterest Board.
Do you have a friend that always has great suggestions for your projects? You can invite them to collaborate and view your mood boards. Go to your profile page and select your desired board. Right below the board’s title, you will see your account icon with a plus sign beside it. You can invite collaborators by sharing the link or searching their name and email address if they have a Pinterest account.
You’re all set to start pinning ideas and getting those great projects off the ground! Be sure to follow your favorite accounts like Spoonflower for inspiration, videos and the latest guides.
Always looking for ideas
I love simplicity and colors of nature
My biggest stumbling block is always lack of funds. DIY is very important
hello, I have just completed my mood board! I think.. and now color palette.I like a hint of red in my board which was a bit challenging,so I am learning so mcuh,and Getting my creative mind working .
http://www.pinterest.com/sonjalv/inspiration/
and now for a medium I am using water color
Today’s Spoonflower’s Twelve days of design is all about making your color pallet. They also suggest you practice this everyday. If you like you can store your pallets on line at ColourLovers.com. This is a pretty cool site. Also you can try Adobe Color CC.com is you are not technically challenged.
I found both these sites to be great to use however I still have trouble just teaching myself how to use Facebook, Blogger, Twitter etc. So I choose to get use to basic electronics before I get into more challenging complicated ones. These will be my next set of goals to learn.
My basic color pallet is shown on my blog at mindyrdesigns.blogspot.com or on Facebook at MindyRdesigns. I am only learning how to share all this technical computer language as well as Photoshop, etc. I am improving each day.
Hi there! Many thanks for this fantastic opportunity. This is my first ever experience with a surface design. Just decided to drop a line here and to share the links – to my moodboard and the blog post with my 3 days experience: http://kissinia.blogspot.ie/2014/12/12-days-of-design-with-spoonflower.html and Pinterest board: http://www.pinterest.com/kissinia/spoon-challenge/
Thanks once again! Looking forward 🙂