Creating Collages for Pinterest

One of the best ways to showcase your work on Pinterest is to create a collage. I recommend using a vertical collage, because they get more repins and clicks.

There are several ways to make a vertical collage with free programs.

Free Photo Editing Site

• www.Pixlr.is a free service and you can create vertical collages with 3 or 4 pictures.
• PicMonkey.com is a free service and you can create a vertical collage with 5 pictures. It also has many other layouts for collages. It can be confusing to start with PicMonkey, because you must first make the collage with pictures and then you can "edit" it in the regular editor program. In the edit program you can add text, overlays, 

Collage Making Apps

• PicStich is another great app that allows you to create collages with up to 6 photos. You can post them directly to social networks or save them to your camera roll. I created this collage in no time at all and automatically posted it to Instagram from the app.

• Bazaart app allows you to create collages with however many photos you'd like.  I created this tea party collage in just a few minutes.

Instaframe+ is another collage making app. It's my least favorite these, but works great and links to social networks.

No matter what program you use keep a few things in mind while creating your collages.

Use Good Photos

• The best photos are well lit. You can see which photos are too dark for my tea party collage. I should have lighten each of those photos before using them, or left them out. 
• Crop out anything that you don't want in the picture like too much sky or pavement.

Create a Graphic

•  Cutest Blog on the Block has tons of free banners, buttons, and more. I get the one I want and then modify it, however I like in one of the photo editing programs, like PicMonkey. For example I grabbed this free banner and turned it into pinterest graphics for my posts. Right now these graphics are not hyperlinked, because I didn't need them to be, but if you did just use Powerpoint to add hyperlinks.
  
  
  

Add Text

• Make sure the font you choose isn't "too busy". You want the font to compliment the photo, not ruin it. 
• Center the text. 9 times out of 10 you will want your text centered.
• Only use 1 or 2 fonts depending on how much text you have. I usually use only one font, but sometimes use different sizes for different words.
• Pick out a text color that matches something in your photo. For instance a blue pool with a red umbrella. Make the font red.
• For this photo I used PicMonkey and added a rectangle overlay that I shaded aqua. I choose overlay from the drop down menu and then put my text on top of it. This was the final result. I love it because it made it look almost 3D, like the words are under the water.