2.09.2012

Organization: Magazines

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I don't know about you, but I have a hard time throwing out magazines with hosehold tips and recipes. Martha Stewart taking the lead. 

I don't even subscribe to magazines, these are just issues I've been given, found in "free" boxes, or end up on my shelf in some other magical way. But they really do take up so much room! Not to mention it'll take me ages to find one recipe that I think I saw a month ago. 

Solution: Cut out the pages I want and put them in a binder. 

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Using an X-acto knife I cut out recipes and household tips and decor ideas. Some recipes are cut and taped on a page because I wanted just one recipe and not the whole page it came on. 

Then they go in lightweight plastic sleeves (I ended up using over 200). 

It's all still a work in progress, but has been great so far. You can do this with any magazine: fashion, craft, hobby, etc. and organize it further with tabs. 

I'm going to categorize my home binder with "Decor" "Housekeeping" "Clothing care" and "Renovations". 

For the binder spine (is it called a spine like a book?) I cut a piece from a scrap of vintage wallpaper and stenciled basic labels. Much less space taken up, much easier to find things I want, and looks cute to boot! 

Just be sure to be careful when using an X-acto knife, they can be very sharp and slippery!

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22 comments:

Sandra said...

What a great idea. I have so many magazines cluttering up my room.

Melissa Dawn Design said...

I keep my recipes in a binder with the clear sleeves too, nice and easy to wipe clean too!

Jessie-Dain said...

Fabulous! Thank you! You would make my life if you could do a blog post on how to organize your stockings. I have way too many and right now they're just all crammed in my dresser!

art deco dame said...

Good way to keep your favorites organized.I don't subscribe to magazines but due to going to estates and what not I always end up with a ton at one time that I often don't know what to do with.

Andi B. Goode said...

This is what my mum has always done, too. :)
-Andi x

Betty2Tone said...

I did that with all the *NSYNC articles I couldn't stand to get rid of :D

Malayka said...

This is such a great idea, I'm definitely going to do this!

Sandy -- As Told By Mommy said...

Fabulous! I have been working on a similar thing the past few months. I am very disorganized, but to be a better mommy and wife and happier in general I need to get my life in order! Here's to getting organized!

--Sandy
www.AsToldByMommy.blogspot.com

Melissa C said...

I do this with recipes too, but I use those sticky "magnetic" pages for pictures. I love it!

Anonymous said...

I actually collect Martha Stewart mags. I have at least one copy of every magazine (US versions) she's ever produced. Weddings, kids, baby, blueprint, body + Soul (now whole living) and all of the special issues. I can part with anything but these (well, these and my Victorias) I used to have a terrible time parting with them, but now I scan or remove anything I like and find inspirational and then just organize it on my external HD. Doing so is free and takes up none of my precious space!

Sarah Jane said...

Great storage solution

Purrfect Kat said...

It must have taken you ages to do that!!! well done, nothing feels better than having an organized home :-)
http://purrfectkat.blogspot.com/

Unknown said...

This has always been what I've done - but I am totally inspired by how your folders look! It's given me a bit more inspiration other than having "DIY" or "Make Up" in my horribly messy hand writing!

Paris of Juno Barrington Vintage

Darleen Hope said...

What a beautiful blog!! :)
I love these photos so much! I'm following you now! ;)

http://past-the-milky-way.blospot.com/

A Thrifty Mrs said...

I organise mine in a similar fashion and it works well. Someone above said it must take ages ...it does to start off with but if you keep on top of it it's fine and it is a great resourse to have organised and on tap.

Anonymous said...

I'm with you, I had a nice office with built in shelves at my old house. Therefore I had the space to have the past 2 years of Martha Stewart Mags there. Our new home doesn't have the space so I did the same thing as you, they went in a binder and the rest were recycled. We did the same thing with our DVD's and CD's too. Saves so much space.

Raquel Stecher said...

We scanned all of our favorite articles from our mountain of magazines into our computer and saved them as PDFs but I think I like your idea much better!

Unknown said...

Hello dear =)
I love following your blog ... you are beautiful and dress up so well, just love it!
We have many points in common, especially in the desire for all things vintage.
There is very little time I created my blog, so it is still in the beginning!
Keep doing a good job and excuse my bad English.

With Love
Miss Lil'Susie*

Unknown said...

That is one cool idea xx May have to attack my own pile of magazines to do the same xx

Hi, my name is Judy. said...

That is exactly what I have done with my recipes. I'm glad you shared the idea! To jazz up the binders, I covered them with repro vintage housewife fabric (similar to this http://www.jandofabrics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=pin00008 )
This is a tutorial for how to do it. http://2littlehooligans.blogspot.com/2010/06/fabric-covered-3-ring-binder-tutorial.html
Now, I need to take the time to purge my binders since I used to clip out everything I saw!
I like your reader's idea of scanning things too.

Rhia said...

Great idea! I've done similar thing with my fashion clippings and articles. I have bought several (now four in total) sketch books and instead of using plastic pockets I have glued everything on the pages. It takes more time because I also want to sort everything by theme/colour/pattern etc. But it's definetly worth it because they are pretty to browse. I can get rid of the magazines that takes enourmous space and these four sketch books only take bout 10 cm on my bookshelf.

Rhia from
http://www.evildressmaker.com/

Sarah said...

My "ideas" collection was manageable enough that I either took a photo of the page and uploaded to Pinterest or found the same thing on the site. I sincerely hope that Pinterest isn't a fad - but either way, binders have more longevity.