Make your own collage kit: room decor

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I've just started my sophomore year of college and with most of my classes being online, I was challenged with the option to stay home or head back to school. Knowing that I would have at least one class in person, I decided that I needed to find an apartment, and luckily I have some amazing girls to live with. The first thing that came to my mind after signing the lease was "omg I get to decorate a new room!", so I got right to it.

I constantly came across collage boards and fell in love with the idea but couldn't find one I absolutely had to have nor wanted to spend a a lot of money on. I quickly realized how easy it is to put one together myself and I HIGHLY suggest doing it!

Here are the 5 simple steps to create your own collage board for cheap:

1. Pin Your Favorite Pictures

This is my favorite part and its only the first step! I have always been obsessed with Pinterest, especially because you can completely personalize it! So, take your theme and inspiration to Pinterest and pin every photo that stands out to you. IMPORTANT: to find the most professional photos, type your inspiration word and then "aesthetic" after it.

I have worked hard on building my Pinterest and it's where most of my inspiration comes from. Follow my account and check it out here!

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2. Download and add to Costco Photo Center

I found that Costco has the cheapest option for printing photos and is available to pick up the day you order! Just log into yours or your parents Costco account and upload your photos to their website. If that’s not an option you can always use Walmart for inexpensive photos as well. You will have to modify the sizes yourself as they may come out blurry. The website will warn you if your picture is too big for the pixel size so pay attention to that! Lastly, I recommend getting 70-100 pictures depending on how much space you would like to cover. I printed 90 photos ranging from 4x6, 5x7, and 5x5 for a total of $30.

3. Make a Mood Board (optional)

This step was just a preference for me because I wanted to organize the collage before placing it on my wall. It helps to see all your pictures at once and get a feel for how you want it to look. I used photoshop but you can do this through google docs as well.

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4. Mess Around with Placement and Shape

Similar to step 3, this time, I had the actual photos and organized them on the floor in the way I wanted it on my bedroom wall. After feeling content with how it was set, I piled the photos by row so it was all ready for me to put together when I got to my new apartment.

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5. Tape to Your Wall!

So you don't ruin the paint on your walls, I suggest purchasing command strip tape to stick these. It was super easy and worked really well!

I had so much fun customizing my own collage board especially knowing that it would fit in perfectly with the rest of my colors and decorations. It was also way cheaper to go through Costco or Walmart and really didn't take much time to complete.