Freebie: Custom Mood Board (and How-to)

Freebie Alert:
I miss doing mood boards. I haven't done one in ages. I know I should do one again soon. I'm just lacking the right room inspiration. If you like the mood boards I did, and have a room that you want to redecorate, I welcome requests. I'll do one for you for free if the room idea you have inspires me. :) So send some suggestions my way, and help me rid myself of some mood board craving.


Mood boards I did before:

A navy and mustard nursery

A Reader's Bedroom

A Paris-Inspired Bedroom

A Bright and Bold Nursery

A Gender-Neutral Nursery

Anyway, back to my real post. A reader requested that I post a tutorial on how I do mood boards. I am by no means an expert, but I think it's a great idea to share with you how I do them. The way I want my mood boards to look is to make it feel like a real room so you can visualize it without clutter.

I usually use Photoshop, but Keynote works too.

Okay, here we go.

For a sample image, I am using West Elm's Slipper Chair (so pretty).


STEP 1:
Scour for images of your selected pieces. Images with plain backgrounds are easier to manipulate. If you can find one with a white background, the better.

STEP 2:
Clean the image so that only the piece that you want is left. Erase even the white background. Keynote's "alpha" or Photoshop's "Lasso" will do the trick. You need to delete the background even if it is white.

Using Keynote: Click and drag out the color/s you wanted to make transparent. Do this over and over again. See what I mean if your photo is not clean?

Using Photoshop: Use the lasso tool to select the chair, then ctrl+shift+i to invert the selection, then hit delete.

Cleaned up image using Photoshop.

STEP 3:
Layout your mood board. Add text or numbers to identify the pieces. Here I used my Reader's Bedroom mood board and replaced the swivel chair with this one.

Here's the before photo:

STEP 4:
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