ARTICLE: The Happiness Vision Board: How to Create Your Own Happiness Vision Board

(Originally published at Yahoo.voices formerly Associated Content~1/12/2009)

ABSTRACT: A Happiness Vision Board is different from a regular Vision Board in that all the images on one are those to suggest happiness and peace of mind.

CONTENT: Many people who are into the whole Law of Attraction principles, especially now thanks due to the recent success of both the book and DVD of The Secret are familiar with the usage of a Vision Board. Vision Boards are not by any means a new concept, and in some schools or New Age type religious organization have called them "Treasure Maps" instead. Even the classic book by Shakti Gawain, The Creative Visualization, published some twenty-five years ago gives mention to the idea of creating a "Treasure Map".

What the Vision Board is, for those of you not familiar with them, is to cut out images of things you would like to see manifest in your life. One creates such a Vision Board by taking images from magazines, cutting them out, and placing them on a poster type board. The best way to do this is to get a really wide variety of magazines, from home and garden, travel, luxury, and fashion type magazines. Dreaming of that new home? Then cut out an image of the type of home you would like to have. One cuts out representational for each and everything you want to manifest in your life. One can even do a composite virtual vision board via their computer by finding images on various websites and with some photo editing techniques using their Photoshop software. One can even create a virtual Vision Board screensaver, so that everytime you turn on your computer, those positive images are the first thing you'll see.

However, there is one thing that many of us may neglect which is equally and vitally important when creating a Vision Board. Most of us are so concerned and place more importance to the material things in life, such as the perfect home, luxury car, more money, travel dreams, and so forth, that we forget something that is so key to our true success in life, and it can be summed up in one word: happiness.

I'm currently in the midst of reading Happy For No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy From The Inside Out by Marci Shimoff. Ms. Shimoff was just one of many participants of the DVD The Secret, and I give her credit for the idea of creating of "Happiness Vision Board." The idea is basically the same concept, that is to get a stack of magazines and clip out images, but instead of the material things one wants in life, the idea is to cut images out that give one a sense of peace, tranquility and happiness, and not just for our future longings for true happiness, but for this very minute of your life, in other words, right now, for now, the present is the time we actually live in; neither in the past, nor the future.

Ask yourself, what gives you a sense of happiness, peace, or tranquility? Does your soul find a sense of bliss through nature? Do you love seeing sunsets? A beautiful butterfly resting on a flower? A waterfall? Do you feel contentment and happiness with your pet, your baby or child? Then by all means collect such images for your "Happiness Vision Board". By placing images on a poster board that give you a sense of happiness you just might find yourself less stressed out. Place this "Happiness Vision Board" where you will see it often, say right next to your computer desk; place somewhere near your bed, so the first thing you see in the morning, you'll see those peaceful, positive images and could be instrumental in creating a more positive mood in yourself that will last the whole day long.

Now for those computer geeks out there, besides creating a physical Happiness Vision Board, one can also do a virtual one such as the one I illustrate here with this article. All the images I have on it are in my own photographic collection, and as you can surmise, I'm a real nature lover.

To create your own Happiness Virtual Vision Board, open up your photo-edtiting software, such as Photoshop. Click on, "New" to get a blank canvas image and determine the size you want, in my case, I had the blank canvas image as 6" x 4" inches, which is a lot easier than trying to figure out pixel sizes. Then from your photo library, one by one, open up which images you would like to use. For each image, click on the Select All function, then press Control + C (for Mac users such as myself, it's Command + C) to copy the image. Go back to the blank canvas image, and paste the image using the Control + V (Mac users: Command + V). Next in Photoshop, click the Image Menu, then Transform, and choose the Free Transform function. This will allow you to move, place and even resize that image wherever you want it on that blank canvas. Click the Save As function and a dialog box will open asking if you wish to apply the "transformation" image, click okay, and the image is now set on the canvas. Repeat each step over again, for each image you want to add to that blank canvas until you have the whole canvas filled with the images you want for you Happiness Vision Board.

Not only will Happiness Vision Boards give you a sense of peace, tranquility and happiness at any time, but they can be so vitally important to one's peace of mind especially when feeling depressed or low.

IMAGE SOURCE~©MELANIE NEER~COLLAGE OF MY VARIOUS PHOTOS

ARTICLE: Creating Your Own Virtual Vision Board

(Originally published at Yahoo.voices formerly Associated Content~4/30/2008)

ABSTRACT: A vision board is a means to visualize what one desires in one's life. One can take this concept one step further by creating a virtual, computerized version of a vision board

CONTENT: Sometime ago, I wrote an article here about the Law Of Attraction concepts or principles which of course has gotten so popular again these past few years due to the popularity of the book and DVD The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, when in truth, the Law of Attraction has been around for a very long time. I myself grew up with these principles, thanks to my great-grandmother who was way ahead of her time, and in fact, I still have her old copy of The Secret of The Ages by Robert Collier, which consequently was just one of the books Ms. Byrne read that got her on the road to understanding the principles of the Law of Attraction.

One of the most valuable tools one can use to embrace the Law of Attraction and to visualize what one wants in life, that is more prosperity, acquiring one's dream home, better health, or whatever it is one desires in life is to create what is known as the vision board. This too, is not a new idea in itself, and as far back as I can remember, I've been creating vision boards. Such non-denominational Christian sects, such as Unity and Science of Mind have touched on this idea, usually calling them "treasure maps" instead, and author Shakti Gawain in her book, Creative Visualization, first written in 1978 also suggested this idea as well.

Basically, the vision board is a visual tool for one's use in attracting and creating the lifestyle they wish to have. The most simplistic type of vision board is to take a plain poster sized board, the kind one can purchase in an arts and crafts store. Now here is where the fun begins. Collect and take a stack of magazines, and have as much of a variety as possible, so you include magazines such as home decor, cars, travel, luxury homes (a great one is Unique Homes) and so forth. Skim through each magazine, clipping pictures that represent what you want to manifest in your life. Once one has all these cut out images, one can then arrange them anyway they wish. For instance, on the one vision board I have that I have positioned right near my computer desk, I have images of a Jaguar car, a private Lear Jet, a yacht, a luxury log cabin type home, a large gourmet-styled kitchen, an image of a bottle of Dom Peringon champagne--all to suggest the wealthy lifestyle. I also have images of places I wish to travel, such as the British Isles, France, to go on an African photo safari trip, and so forth. And of course, I have images that to me are representative and suggest my success as both a photographer and writer.

But what if one wants to take this vision board concept a few steps further? And yes, this can be done now in this computerized age, and there are several ways to do this. One way to do this is to purchase anyone of the software programs available to create a virtual vision board, such as "Vision Board™", which is the software program recommended by many of the participants in The Secret, such as Bob Proctor, Jack Canfield, and Bob Doyle, just to name a few and can be ordered via the Visual Your Goals website (http://www.visualizeyourgoals.com/?gclid=CMWP85_J-ZICFQMelgodCGUxFg) for approximately $59.00. But what if you're on a tight budget, and buying such a software program to create a virtual vision board is out of the question? Well there still are methods one can use to create your own virtual vision board.

I happen to have a Mac computer, and two of the fantastic built-in features and programs are iDVD and iMovie, but I'm sure PC users have some means of creating their own DVDs as well. What I did was once again, collect images, some where my own photos I've taken over the years and stored in my photo library folder, while others were images I found in the public domain image banks. I then went to my iDVD program, choose one of the many templates that are available, then began the process of uploading my images. I also typed in and added positive affirmation words using the feature where these positive words zoom through the image, remain stationary for a few seconds then have the fade effect and then goes to the next vision image. As an extra touch to this all, I added a music score from my collection of music stored on my iTunes library. This virtual DVD vision board I created lasts about five minutes and of course can be played back over and over again. Now for those of you who might not be quite the computer geek I am, you may be thinking to yourself, well, I'm not that skilled in creating something so elaborate, so then what?

If you have even just some basic photo-editing know how and can use a program like Photoshop you can do the next best thing to creating a DVD, and that is to create a Vision Board Screen Saver or wallpaper. This is probably a more simplistic means in designing a virtual vision board. Once again, it's simply collecting images that are representative in what you want to manifest in your life.

Here are the steps for creating your virtual Vision Board Screensaver/Wallpaper.

1). First, open up your photo-editing program and click on "File" then "New", then "blank file". That should open up a dialogue window where you can choose the dimensions of the blank white file. I choose to use a blank file image with the dimensions of 8.25-inches x 8.25-inches at 100ppi.

2). Next start opening up the images you want to place on this blank image file. I started with an image of a luxury log cabin type home, then by clicking on the rectangular marquee tool, I drew the marquee a tool over the image, then "copied" it using the Control + C keys (Cloverleaf + C on Mac computers). Go back to the blank image file and click on Control + V (Cloverleaf + V on Mac), and your image will be pasted onto the blank file image. To position the image where you want it, click on "Image" on the toolbar, then "transform", and finally "free transform". This will allow you to not only position the image where you want it, but you can also resize it to the perfect size you want on the blank file.

3).Once this image is where you want it, click on "File" and "Save As"...this will open a small dialogue box that will ask you if you want to apply the transformation application, in which you click on "Apply." Another dialogue box will open for the "Save As" feature in which you can save it as "Vision Board" in either the .psd or .jpg. extension...I use both extensions, first saving separately in the .psd format, then the .jpg format. One goes through these steps for each and every image you want as part of your virtual Vision Board. The dialogue box will no doubt indicate to you that you already have a saved Vision Board and will ask if you wish to replace it, so be sure to click the "yes" button to save each step of your Vision Board. If you wish, you can also add some text over the images by using the horizontal text tool, and choosing whichever text and color fonts you wish. You then finally click on the "Save As" to save the whole Vision Board you have now created.

Now you have your own customized virtual Vision Board that you can have as a Screen Saver or wallpaper. Since I have a Mac computer I have what is called the "Systems Profiler" where I can click on the desktop and screensaver features to choose what I want to use. Once I click on that I can choose which image from my photo library that I wish to use as a Screen Saver and which type of feature I want, that is full screen, or what I commonly use is the "tile" feature which allows a repetitive image of the original to fit the whole monitor.

For PC users click on your "Display Properties" dialogue box...You'll see the words Background, Screen Saver, Appearance, Effects, Web, Settings....click on the Background feature, then click the Browse feature which will allow you to find your virtually created Screen Saver/Wallpaper, choose that image, and finally click the OK button and viola, you now have your customized Vision Board as a wallpaper.

The true beauty of creating you own customized Vision Board Screen Saver or Wallpaper is obvious. Every time you turn on your computer you mind is focusing on those positive images of the lifestyle you hope and desire in your life. Not a bad way to start or end the day, is it?

Image Source~My own "Virtual Vision Board"~I included the familiar words of Mike Dooley of The Secret "Thought Become Things"