Bookworm Cottage Style

When I was telling my friend Sarah about my craft party, she mentioned a creative exercise that she did with friends to ring in the New Year. They used the Pinterest app to make 2025 vision boards. Basically they are little digital collages with images meant to represent what they wanted the incoming year to look and feel like. My friend Sarah is a jetsetter so she had images of travel destinations to represent her upcoming trips, as well as images to represent a move to a new apartment she was manifesting and images to represent the fun social plans she wanted to make. She then saved the final collage as the lock screen on her phone to remind herself of the energy and experiences she wanted to cultivate.

As someone who loves scrapbooking and Pinterest and daydreaming in general, I became completely smitten with this idea. Sign me up! So one morning, instead of scrolling Instagram as one does, I opened up the Pinterest app on my phone, hit the plus sign icon at the bottom middle of the screen, hit the collage button, and started creating. (Side note: As much as I prefer the large screen of my laptop, this is a project that only works on the Pinterest app on a touch-screen device like an iPhone or perhaps an iPad. More detailed instructions here.)

The vision board / mood board / inspiration board I came up with is all about what I’m manifesting for summer 2025. New England summers are nothing short of magical (perfect weather, white sand beaches, hydrangeas as far as the eye can see) and I keep pinching myself that our parental leave is timed so that our little family of three will get to soak up the summer together — no work, no plans, just vibes.

Newborn snuggles and neighborhood walks in the stroller are the top priorities for this upcoming season of life. I’m hoping to get to a beach visit in (maybe Nahant, maybe Annisquam, maybe Singing Beach) at least once with our little nugget. Fashion wise, I’m aiming for chic athleisure (like this hat or this dress) and oversized tops that are comfortable on a postpartum body and are cute enough to encourage me to venture out of the house. I also plan to indulge in the forbidden fruits of pregnancy with hot bubble baths on cold summer nights and at least one mini oyster date at our neighborhood seafood spot. And if we can really get our act together, I hope to spruce up the backyard a little bit for all of the time we’ll be spending at home. Bistro chairs and a new umbrella are already in the works, but hanging string lights is the big project that I’d really love to see happen. And lastly, we can’t forget books, because I hope to still make time for reading this summer (and am feeling extra encouraged after reading this beautiful essay).

This mood board was a lot of fun to work on and I can totally see myself using this exercise to welcome each changing season and cultivate a mindset of looking forward. I also love Sarah’s idea of doing this as a New Years project. After all, the first step to building a big beautiful life is to take notice of what lights you up. 

Have you made a vision board on Pinterest?