Before I get into this post, allow me to quickly share some of the magazines I subscribe to and purchase each month:
Martha Stewart Living
Martha Stewart Everyday
Martha Stewart Weddings
Whole Living (Formerly Body and Soul, another Martha Stewart publication)
Food and Wine
Cooking Light
House Beautiful
Real Simple
Bon Appetit
Yes, I’m Martha Stewart obsessed. And I’m sure I’m missing a few. As much as I enjoy going online to find recipes and articles, nothing compares to receiving my monthly magazines, sitting down on the couch (with wine?), and skimming through the glossy pages to let my imagination wander for bits of inspiration. I enjoy magazines so much that I have them stacked in almost every room and have read many of them more than a handful of times. Here is one area of magazines:
The lack of organization got to the point where I couldn’t function with the stacks scattered about and I couldn’t stand not being able to remember where certain articles or recipes were. So I decided I really needed to force myself to set aside a generous amount of time, tear out the go-to recipes and articles, and create a successful system to organize myself. Every person has a different idea of “successful system” so I really think when it comes to organizing you have to do what works best for you and your lifestyle. All of our brains work in different ways and what works for one person might be the complete opposite of what works for you.
When it comes to organizing, especially for a project like this, first consider your needs:
• How will the system be used? For inspiration, research, a memory? In my case, I’m using all of my magazine finds as inspiration and as a form of design research.
• Will the pages and articles you find need to be removed or relocated? I decided there might be a time where I will need to relocate some of the pages I find or rearrange some articles. I didn’t want anything to be permanently placed. Plus, over time, some of the content may no longer be relevant and I might feel the need to edit and discard certain things.
• Will the pages need to be protected? I also decided that I wanted to protect the pages I tear out of magazines. I toyed with the idea of just hole punching the the articles and putting them in the binder as is, but quickly remembered how thin magazine paper is and how the pages will get damaged over time if they weren’t protected. I also like to use post-it notes to mark pages for particular projects I’m working on, so I didn’t want pages to tear. I factored in that I’ll most likely need to travel with these magazine clippings to meet with brides and grooms so I needed to store them in something durable.
After I asked myself these questions, I came up with my solution, which involved some very basic office supplies:
• 1″ white binders from Staples, I think I purchased these for $.99 or $1.99… the most inexpensive they had to offer.
• 2 economy packs of sheet protectors from Staples, I put 100 sheet protectors in each binder to start.
• a role of tape.
• I then designed and printed (on a heavy white cardstock) covers, spines, and backs for each binder. I got the idea for the gradient dot design on the covers from a greeting card I designed years and years ago. I liked the simplicity of the card so much that I decided to replicate it on the binders.
I decided to go with 3-ring binders since I can incorporate tabs and easily section the binders. For the food and recipes binder, I can easily section it into breakfasts, appetizers, entrees, desserts etc.
I color coded each subject:
Orange = food and recipes
Blue = interior design
Purple = health, beauty, fashion
Yellow = wedding inspiration
I’m also planning on doing binders for craft ideas and travel.
And then I got to tearing all of my magazines apart. I set up a station of brown paper grocery bags to recycle magazines and made piles for each subject: recipes, wedding, interior design, and health/beauty/fashion. I looked through all of the magazines, tore out anything that inspired me, motivated me, or caught my eye. Before anything went in the binders I edited the piles again. The articles and images you keep should be the very best of the best; the items and information that will actually be used. When it comes to organizing recipes, a lot of magazines will feature an image of a dish on one page then the actual recipe in the back of the magazine. When I came across this scenario I would cut the recipe out and tape it to the page with the picture of the dish. Also, since a lot of magazine pages are larger than 8.5×11 some of them needed to be trimmed before being slipped in the sheet protectors. I suppose you could just jam the pages in, but I say, if you’re trying to get organized it may as well be neat and tidy 
I won’t lie, this is very time consuming and it took me a few very solid days to finish the project, but it’s worth every minute to have a successful and organized system. My new rule is that once a magazine enters my house, I’ll read it at the first available moment, cut and tear out anything worthwhile for the appropriate binder, and recycle the remains.
The end result is a complete breath of fresh air. It feels like I just delivered a baby. Not that I know what that feels like and I’m sure bringing life into the world is a million times more rewarding, but I cherish my magazines so much (like some cherish their newborn baby?) and it’s such a wonderful feeling to see all of my favorite pages and inspiration in one place. I’m definitely a proud parent 
For more of my home organization How-Tos:
Jewelry Storage
Office Organization
Better Organizing Your Paper and Mail
Extra Button Storage
How do you store your favorite articles, recipes, and bits of inspiration?
[Chels]
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i did this for a while, but only for my recipes. now i have runners world and better homes and garden piling up and i have yet to sort through them.
Great ideas and inspiration–thanks!
Love it!!! I’m a binder maniac myself. But I currently have torn out recipes just stuffed in between cookbooks, so I should definitely try your system. I’ll put it on the list of summer projects!
Great idea! It looks wonderful now!
I am inspired! Thanks
Absolutely LOVE the gradient dot pattern on those binders! I wish I was as graphically talented as you!
can i make an inspiration binder of just you, chels?
this is genius! (and would clear out so much space here!)
wow girl you are a true inspiration. i need to get more organized: starting with home/decor binders! such a great idea.
Wow, I’m impressed. You’re so organized. Just yesterday i was trying to sort my magazines and put them in order but I’m nowhere near as meticulous as you are. Congrats, your ideas are very helpful!
you are a hoot with the newborn baby paragraph
this does sound like such a rewarding project. nice job.
I have a simmilar approach! I don’t subscribe to any magazines, but I’m a sucker for the free ones – you know Stuff and Impropor. And I will buy some of what you mentioned occasionally. I have a pocket in a file folder where I save special articles, restaurant reviews (places I’ve been, places I want to eat at.) You have inspired me to really take it to the next level though. we’ll see….
I do something very similar with my recipes. I tear out any recipes that look interesting to me and put them in my recipe binder in the folder that starts each section of (i.e. appetizer recipe in appetizer folder). Once I use that recipe, I put it in a protector sheet in the recipe binder so they are easy to find. Love it.
I LOVE this project. I’ve been meaning to organize my recipe folder… and my magazines forever but other things take over my time. One day I’ll get to it for sure. Thanks for reminding me I really should do it. I am sure it is super rewarding at the end.
I moved recently and went through all my magazines and tore out the recipes that I wanted. I’ll have to make a binder (or five) soon of the ones I kept!
I’ve done something similar with the “Good Things” section of my Martha Stewart Living mags. I love being able to flip through them and not have to go back to the magazine to find fun tips! Good thinking!
organizing with binders is SO SMARTand creative! i tried donig this awhile back but now i have sheets of random papers lying around so i need to take your advice and start organizing again. makes everything so much easier!!
xoxo
You’ve inspired me – I think! I try to avoid individual issues of magazines and buy their yearbooks instead. It just works better for me. I hope you are having a great day. Blessings…Mary
i have tried putting my recipes in a binder as well, but due to sheer laziness, i would just tear out a recipe from a magazine and shove it in a drawer in my kitchen. thanks for the inspiration/motivation to get that started again!
My grandmother did something like this with all of the recipes she collected from the ’50s until her dementia got bad in the mid-’90s. My fondest childhood memories are of being a kid in her kitchen, poring over all of the glossy pictures on yellowed magazine paper in their protective sheets, painstakingly separated by category. (My favorite was the blue binder of cakes and pies, of course.)
What strikes me about the project, though, is that although she probably thought she was just organizing her magazines, her binders turned into the greatest single legacy she left, and a tangible reminder to me of her before the disease took her mind.
Whoa. Sorry. Didn’t mean to spill out — ugh — feelings everywhere. But needless to say, I think this is a really, really good idea. And who knows, you might be creating your own family heirlooms.
I too have a PILE of magazines and pages from magazines (see I did start)..and then I stop haha. I think I just need to keep reading this post over and over and over again until I DO IT!!
My friend was just making fun of my for putting InStyle pages into a binder! This is really amazing. The sheet protectors are sort of a must. You have such a fantastic system!
In the past I used to sort out all of my favorite design and architecture magazines myself but it just takes so much time that I don’t have these days. I’m organizing and binder freak but sometimes I really make myself throw away the magazines I know I will never read in the future.
Oh how this post resonates with me…In January we bought a house…way smaller than our rental. We had to downsize bigtime. I had a “craft room” in our rental…but really it was a home for all my magazines. Every Martha, Cooking light, Gourmet and Bon Appetit dating back to 2003. I tossed them. It was heartbreaking but it had to be done. I managed to keep my Everyday Food collection cause they are so darn small and cute. Boo Hoo. Your solution would have been a better idea.
Hi,
Thanks for the wonderful idea of being organized. I would love to do it on my collection of recipes that needs to be printed and filed.
thank you thank you thank you for posting this! I have had so much trouble with the millions of torn out pages from magazines that this will help me a ton!
I do the same thing! It makes life so much easier!
Great article. I wrote one recently about using trays to organize magazines. I’d been doing something similar with baskets when my husband saw a spot on Regis & Kelly about trays. You display your prettiest magazines on a tray on or under your coffee table but, when it’s time to move or declutter, you can move the whole stack in a second. It’s still posted on my site but the video link is in an article I posted on Examiner.com/rochester http://exm.nr/bs6MFc
Oh.m.g. We’re on the same wave length or something.. first of all we have the same bookshelf I think and they look ridiculously simliar with all the magazines! and two, I just started tearing out recipes the other night to consolidate them into a binder! ha Love it. Such a great idea.
I absolutely love your binder cover/spine and back designs! Any chance you will be posting a printable on this?
Man! Is this a great idea!!
Just found your blog from A Soft Place to Land: love the dots on the binder covers!! Too cute!
I’m looking forward to reading your other posts.
I love the binder cover and spine template. Is there any chance you would share or sell the template?
This is exactly what I’ve was looking for. For the past year I have been cutting and clipping inspirational pages from all of my magazines and didn’t know how to organize them all. This is PERFECT :0)
I am in the middle of a very similar project. It’s taken me quite a while to actually get it going, but am well on my way to having all of my articles, recipes, decorating ideas, etc. sorted and in binders where I can actually find the things I took the time to cut out!
Can you tell me which program you used to make the covers? I really like the them and would like to make some similar for me, unless you posted them somewhere??