(image source)
Back in the day I subscribed to the now-defunct design magazine, Domino. I religiously tore out inspirational pages and glued them into scrapbooks or slid them into clear plastic binder sleeves; I never saved the entire issue. Then I got lazy. I stopped cataloging my favorites and just started stacking past issues on my bookshelves. In retrospect, I’m glad I decided to keep a year’s worth of Domino. It’s fun to flip through them to see what strikes my fancy now.
It’s not practical, however, to keep every single magazine I’ve received, and I receive quite a few of them: Real Simple, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Glamour, Lucky and Body + Soul. I also buy several on occasion, including Women’s Health and Psychology Today. When an article piques my interest, I end up setting aside the magazine to return to at a later time… which rarely happens. I’m wondering if I should start saving specific articles again, and, if so, how. I could paste them inside a notebook, file them in folders, store them in binders or scan them into the computer, as this post from Unclutterer recommends.
Do you save magazine articles for future reference? If so, what strategies do you employ to keep everything neat and organized?
My gym subscribes to magazines for me! :)
When I’m in the line at the store and feel tempted, I consider it an incentive to get in my weekly workouts!
.-= Elizabeth’s most recent blog post: Piece by piece… =-.
Twitter: @Just1Week
I have made a rule for myself – only two issues of a magazine at any given time. In theory, I want to tear out what I like and scan it using my ScanSnap into an electronic folder called “Inspiration” or “Recipes”… but that never happens! Maybe someday!
.-= Erin’s most recent blog post: How You Start Your Day… =-.
Twitter: @amiatead
i am SUCH a clutterbug. i only keep a select few magazines, and use magazine holders from the container store on top of a cabinet to store them. not the prettiest thing in the world but it gets the job done.
i love kelly’s suggestion above for an online database, it would be so much more helpful!
Twitter: @designer_mama
I’m a fan of the binder option! I have binders for different categories (bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, recipes, accessories, materials, etc) and every time I see something I love in a magazine, I tear it out and put it in an empty sheet protector in the corresponding binder!
Yikes. Magazines are a major problem of mine.
I do a good job of tearing out articles in every kind of magazine except food-related ones. Because different recipes appeal to me at different times, I just tend to keep the whole issue (even after I’ve done my original tear-out). We have much less space now that we’ve moved, and I may have to make some hard rules for myself. That huge tower of food mags (your photo is perfect) is looking pretty endangered right about now…
.-= Maggie’s most recent blog post: Screwed by the screw =-.
I love my magazines and have developed a wonderful system that incorporates them beautifully into my home. I have all my “Martha’s” (from 90′s on) in a wonderful heavy rectangle basket that sits on the floor next to a reading chair in the living room. My cooking magazines (Bon Appetite/Gourmet etc.) are stacked next to my cookbooks on a shelf in the living room, others are next to the bed in pretty green heavy baskets I bought at a nursery and yet others are in my home office in stand up wood magazine holders from Ikea. It doesn’t look cluttered at all and when people come over they often gravitate towards getting comfortable, enjoying a nice cup of tea and picking out a wonderful magazine to look at.
I realized that I hadn’t shared my thoughts on the tear sheet issue in the last post and want to say that for years I had been planning to build a house and had so many tear sheets that I just had to figure out a system. I labeled folders with the appropriate title and organized the sheets accordingly. I wish I would have saved some of the magazines because by tearing the pages out I lost the ability to find out the info. on what I liked in the picture (paint resources etc.), so be sure to write notes on your tear sheets if there is a particular item or product you were interested in.