How To Organize Magazines

Well, another Monday is here again!  Those weekends sure do fly by!  It was a wet, rainy one here and I had a good mix of lazy time and work time.  I also got the Halloween decorations up which I will share with you as soon as we have enough light to get some pictures.

So last week, I was visiting over at one of my favorite organizing blogs, Delightful Order.  DaNita has a beautiful blog and has posts on pretty much any organizing project you could think of.  I was talking about how I have been organizing my growing magazine collection and thought I would share it here as well...

If you are anything like me, you collect a fair number of magazines each month.  From home decorating to scrapbooking and parent magazines, to Oprah - I love them all!  Even if you just get a couple each month, they can quickly add up and it can be hard to go back and find what you are looking for.  I have a few places that I stash my current magazines around the house and I try to keep all of my magazines limited to these areas.  

I often like to read right before I go to bed and have a book basket beside the bed to hold my magazines and any books that I am reading.  It is simply an old wicker basket that I painted white and then added a chalk label.

 I also like to look for old crates at any antique or second hand stores that I go to - they are often the perfect size for magazines.  

I have one placed beside my desk and another tucked under my reading chair in our piano room.

Once these storage areas are full, it means that it is time to do a little purging!  While there are a few magazines that I do hold onto, I generally will not hold onto them for longer than a couple of months {or while it is still " in season"}. 

As I read through a new magazine, I either ear mark the pages that I would like to go back to or add a little sticky tab to the page.  Before I recycle any of my magazines, I go back over these pages and see if it is something that I would still like to keep.  I then tear the pages out that I would like to keep {and trim down the edges with a paper trimmer} and file them away.

I found this unit at Target a couple of years ago and it is stored in my craft room.  Unfortunately it is no longer available, but you can always just use a regular file box.  If you know anyone that is handy with woodworking, it would not be hard to re-create it.  I keep those magazines and catalogs that I would like to keep in the slots below.

For any recipes, I have a binder divided into categories {main courses, desserts, food ideas for kids, etc.} and place the pages into plastic covers.  I can just pop a page out when I am ready to try a recipe and the plastic cover keeps it clean while I am cooking.  Once I try a recipe, I transfer it to my recipe files if it was a big hit or toss it if it got the thumbs down.

I hope this helps you to reduce your magazine clutter and makes it a little easier to actually apply all of the inspiration that you find!  Do you still enjoy looking at magazines or are you moving towards online viewing?  How do you organize your stash?  I would love to hear!

Have a great week! 

I linked up with 30 Handmade Days, The Frugal Girls, Live Laugh Rowe, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Tip Junkie, Home Stories A to Z, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Skip to My Lou, Under the Table and Dreaming, Craft-O-Maniac, Alderberry Hill, Positively Splendid, I Heart Naptime, Be Different Act Normal, Funky Junk Interiors, Too Much Time, Tatertots and Jello, Whipperberry, The Shabby Nest, Craftberry Bush, Tidy Mom, Somewhat Simple, Stone Gable, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Savvy Southern Style, Lil Luna, Uncommon and Today's Creative Blog.