Get a hobby. No, seriously. Find something to do in your free time besides scroll through TikTok and switch between the same three social media apps.
Hobbies are so beneficial to the soul. They make you feel productive and get you out of your usual habits. They make people unique and individualistic.
Personally, one of my go-to hobbies is collaging. Whether it be working on an online collage or one in front of me made out of a poster board and magazine clippings, I feel so much more satisfied with the finished product than I feel when passing time with mediocre videos/photos on my feeds.
I fell in love with collaging sometime in junior high when I had to make a poster for my Gifted and Talented Education class. We had to get creative, so I decided to pick out magazine images of celebrities I loved and outfits I’d wear, along with personal photos that I felt best represented who I am. I even went to Michael’s craft store to pick out way too many packages of stickers. Now I’m conditioned to rip out pages from magazines that have cool photos or that could serve as inspiration for my future collage projects.
It’s easy. I prefer making actual collages using poster boards, magazines, old books, or newspapers, but the options are endless. If you have glue, a piece of paper, and some photos, you can make the simplest collage ever. I’ve seen people take two or more images and combine them to make some obscure but interesting images. This is a technique I plan to experiment with soon.
If you’re looking for an online version of collaging, my favorite app to use is PicCollage. It’s more time consuming and not so easy on the eyes, but the results are worth it and I find it very user friendly, especially to beginners. With PicCollage, you can add photos from your camera roll, search images, include text in different fonts, fun backgrounds, and more. My best tip is to save images from Pinterest to trim and layer into your images. The crop tool on the app takes some getting used to but it’s handy to have.
Having complete creative freedom when it comes to building collages is my favorite part of this hobby. I’ve made phone backgrounds before. In high school, I made collages to stick into the front of my binders. My friends and peers also used to ask me to make collages which I loved to create because I got to include their personal photos with my own matching graphics that I felt matched their vibes the best. These were a hit!
Put some glue to paper and see what all you can make. Or try out baking, interior decorating, using model clay, or anything! You’ll love life a little more when you find something to be passionate about in your free time. Life doesn’t always have to be sleep, eat, learn, work, repeat.