Okay, all you chronic magazine-article-ripper-outers, I know you are tired of having torn out pages of magazines sitting on your counters and collecting dust in massive paper piles. You read the magazines, you want to save the articles because you want to go back and read them again or because you want to try out the activity they are suggesting, but how do you organize them so you can find them again when you need them?
I confess, I am a chronic ripper and saver of articles myself — mostly gardening, kids crafts, home decor and recipe articles — and I finally found the solution to organizing them!
Get one accordion folder with a fold-over flap per magazine category (ie. one accordion folder for recipes, one for home decor ideas, etc.) and use the separate compartments inside to sub-divide your magazine articles. Be sure to put a big, ol’ label on the spine and then you can store the folder on its side (see, that’s why you need the kind with the flap) in your bookcase with your other reference books.
One mom I worked with put all of her parenting articles inside her accordion folder and then stashed it in her car so she could read it while waiting for the kids to finish up soccer practice. Another mom I worked with let each of her daughters have one for the craft and game articles they liked to rip out from magazines like “Family Fun.” Then when the girls got bored, their mom could simply tell them to Consult their Craft Folder. I have one accordion folder to organize all of my gardening articles, subdivided by categories like perennials and annuals. I store it with my gardening reference books.
I love this idea, because it’s so simple, inexpensive and effective. Time to shop for accordion folders!
Image courtesy of Pinterest.
I, too, rip out tons of articles and pictures from magazines! I have a folder where I put everything but then I have the problem of trying to find anything once I put it in the folder. This looks like it would work great!
Recently, I started purging all of my Taste of Home magazines by going through them and then putting the recipes that I’m interested in, into a Pinterest board. It takes up no room in my house and it is easy enough to browse my board to see what I’m looking for. So far, it has worked great. I just hope nothing happens to Pinterest! 🙂
Thanks for the great idea!
JanelleS
http://www.parsnipsandparsimony.com
http://pinterest.com/janelleshillito/taste-of-home-recipes/
Hi Janelle, God forbid something happening to Pinterest!! I’m a big fan there myself, so knock on wood that nothing bad happens to it! So with your Taste of Home magazines, are you scanning the articles in and then pinning them or are you looking the articles up on the Taste of Home website and then pinning them? Many of my clients struggle with magazines and saving articles, so I’d love to pass on to them some solution that involves Pinterest because it allows us to toss the magazines. Thanks for reading and commenting! Now I’m heading over to your blog to see what Parsnips and Parsimony is all about. 🙂