Show your style: how to curate your space to showcase your personality

With busy lives and increasingly tight budgets, it can be easy to overlook the importance of the space around us. Whether it's a living room, where we spend most of our evenings; a bedroom, where we head for a cosy retreat; or a room at university, which represents the one place that's really our own, our environments can have a big impact on making us feel safe, at home, like ourselves.

Designer and content creator Susannah Arul is someone who knows first-hand the importance of being able to put your stamp on a space quickly and cost-effectively, without compromising on style. "I've just finished university, where I was moving constantly, then moving back home and then out again, so I was always decorating and redecorating," she explains.

Susannah has a degree in Textile Design from Nottingham Trent University, and currently works as a graphic print designer. She creates interior decor and lifestyle content on social media platforms, where her TikTok videos have received more than 1.3 million likes. Susannah's most recent interior decor project was created using the Canon SELPHY Square QX10. "This portable printer is the perfect opportunity to make a space feel personalised," she says. "I wish I'd had it at university to bring a taste of home and familiarity."

The SELPHY Square QX10 allowed Susannah to print images that caught her attention direct from her smartphone via the Canon SELPHY Photo Layout app. The result? An artistic vision board for the year ahead that reflects her life and style, as well as offering inspiration. Here she reveals how you can do the same.

Susannah describes her current decor as eclectic, colourful and maximalist. "There's plenty of houseplants, patterns and art prints, glimmering disco balls and lots of pieces that I've made or painted myself," she says. "I've always felt that it's important to go all out when decorating to really make my rooms feel like my own. But if your style is minimalist then it's whatever makes you happy.

"I printed pictures of some of my happiest and proudest moments from the previous year and collated them in a gallery wall to put me in a positive mindset," she continues. "I also printed 'aesthetic' photos from Pinterest and my camera roll, of pretty colour palettes and patterns to help me stay inspired creatively for my design job. This helped to create a gallery of images that is not only inspirational to me, but also compliments the aesthetic of my room.

"When inspiration hits, act on it as soon as possible, and just gather absolutely anything that brings you joy," Susannah advises budding creators and designers. "And when you put it all together, it will be full of life."

"Colour palettes and styles will start to emerge," adds Susannah. "You can then translate it to real life using the Canon SELPHY Square QX10 printer."

As new memories are made and new ideas take hold, the Canon SELPHY Square QX10 makes it easy to change the images used depending on mood or time of year. You could begin with positivity and inspiration, like Susannah, and potentially move to an energetic summer feel followed by warm, nostalgic contemplation as the winter months draw in. The internal battery in the Canon SELPHY Square QX10 is capable of producing up to 20 prints from one charge, so creating your own decor with the Canon SELPHY Square QX10 is a quick and cost-effective way to make an impact in your space, without long shopping trips and too much financial investment.

"I love that the printer is so simple to use, and in the moment when you feel inspired you can immediately act upon it and create whatever you want," says Susannah.

The Canon SELPHY Photo Layout app also offers numerous ways to personalise your creations, such as stamps, borders, text, overlays and layouts. And thanks to the SELPHY Square QX10, you can print out photos with captionable borders for a special look you'll treasure. "I used the text to write over pictures to pinpoint happy memories, and the stamps to add little doodles over the images. I also wrote the date on a few," says Susannah.

Together, the Canon SELPHY Square QX10 printer and the Canon SELPHY Photo Layout app offer lots of potential for social media content, which was a great match for Susannah's project. "I think the printer is the perfect tool for bringing social media to life," she says. "Instead of gathering inspirational images on a virtual board you can create a real one instead. I can then share my inspiration with my followers, and the beautiful collages I've created in my room mean it's picture perfect at all times."

Each SELPHY Square QX10 printer comes with a pack of sticky-backed Canon XS-20L Square Photo Paper, which allows you to easily attach pictures to walls, laptops or notepads, and remove them just as simply when you feel like a change or new inspiration strikes to share with your followers, like Susannah did in her TikTok video. "The sticker aspect makes it even easier, and allows you to display the photos immediately," she enthuses.

"The final piece looks like a part of the furniture already – the colours and prints and 'maximalist' design compliments my room perfectly. I love how it doubles as a vision board and as a decorative art piece," says Susannah. "I chose a space that I knew I would use everyday. The gallery wall scatters around my desk – the place I work as a designer, as a social media content creator and also where I get ready in the mornings. The pictures flow from the wall and around my dressing table mirror – so if I'm not feeling the most confident or motivated, I'll see pictures from the previous year that capture my proudest moments. Every day when I sit at my desk, no matter what I'm doing, I'll be inspired."

Susannah's fun, stylish vision board fits beautifully with her existing decor and it not only brings inspiration to her, but her followers too. And, whether you're a professional designer or someone just starting out and looking for an easy way to explore your artistic side, with the option to make changes as new ideas take hold, the Canon SELPHY Square QX10 offers a great way to embrace and immediately showcase your creativity.