How to Organize All Your Ripped Out Magazine Pages

I know this is the digital age, but I am seriously addicted to magazines. Almost as much as I am addicted to Pinterest. Almost. I practically squeal with delight when I open up my mailbox and see the glossy, beautiful cover of Martha Stewart Living….. seriously makes my day. I love to cuddle up in my covers at night with a good magazine.

Organize all those ripped out magazine pages

I find great ideas and inspiration in the plethora of magazines and catalogs that I get in the mail each month, but I find that my magazines start piling up really quickly. When I do get the time to go through them and pull out the ideas that inspire me or that I want to try, I then have a huge paper stack of ripped out magazine pages, instead of magazines. Not pretty!

I needed a solution to my paper piles that were multiplying in my craft closet. So here’s what I came up with…. It’s like Pinterest on paper!!

Binders, sheet protectors, and labels, oh my!

STEP #1: I bought a big binder for each main category I chose: Holidays, Christmas, Kids, Recipes (needed 2 binders for those), and Home. I found these binders in a multi-pack at Costco. I also bought labeled tab dividers to organize each binder even further. The sheet protectors I already had.

STEP #2: I dug into my massive scrapbook paper stash and pulled out some cute patterned paper that worked with each theme, like Christmas paper for the Christmas binder, etc. I used a sheet to slip inside the plastic cover of each binder, and then trimmed a matching piece to fit inside the plastic for the title. I used scrapbook letters, numbers, or just plain scrapbook paper for the titles on the side, but if you didn’t have any of those, you could just as easily type out a title, or even write one.

STEP #3: Next I categorized each binder further so that it made sense to me, and was nice and organized. I printed out a label onto each tab, and put in my tab dividers, in alphabetical order, of course, because I’m anal like that 😉*** Due to reader request, I’m including all of my binders and a list of all of my tabs that I used. You can copy mine or come up with your own based on what types of pages you like to save! ***

KIDS Binder:
* Clothing
* Educational
* Food
* Gifts to Give
* Good Ideas
* Kids Fun
* Made by Mom
* Memories
* Outdoors
* Parties
* Travel
* Room
* Stages
* Stats & Quotes

HOME Binder:
* Candles
* Crafts
* Gifts to Give
* Health & Beauty
* Housekeeping
* Memories
* Outdoors
* Paper Crafts
* Party
* Table Decorations
* Websites
* Misc. (yes, the “M” is not ABC order, but I wanted “misc.” last)

HOLIDAYS Binder: (This binder is in chronological order, not ABC order)
* Valentine’s Day
* St. Patrick’s Day
* April Fools’ Day
* Easter Fourth of July
* Back to School
* Halloween
* Thanksgiving
* New Year’s

CHRISTMAS Binder:
* Candles & Fire
* Crafts
* Decorations
* Food
* Gifts
* Kids
* Table
* Misc.

RECIPES Binder #1: (I have 2 recipe binders because I save so many recipes)
* Appetizers
* Breakfast
* Breads
* Cakes/Pies
* Candy
* Canning
* Cookies
* Desserts
* Dips & Spreads

RECIPES Binder #2:
* Drinks
* Fruits
* Frozen Desserts
* Meat
* Noodles/Pasta
* Pizza
* Poultry
* Salsas
* Sandwiches
* Sauces
* Soups
* Vegetables

STEP #4: And lastly, my favorite part, is to go through all those magazines, recipes, and articles that you’ve been saving, and neatly rip or cut out anything that you want to save. I used a glue stick to glue down every idea onto regular blank paper, and then stuck the pages into my binder under the right category. I glue multiple ideas on each page, as many as I can fit without it looking messy.

From my Kids ideas binder

I love being able to find each idea quickly because it is so organized and easy to find. When it is summer time and the kids are bored, I pull out my kids binder and let the kids flip through and find an activity they’d like to do, or a craft that they’d like to make. When it’s almost Christmas time and I’m felling crafty, I turn to my Crafts section in my Christmas binder.

From my Christmas ideas binder

From my Home binder

I’m so happy with my new system of organizing all of my magazine ideas and inspiration. I hope this helps you get organized too!! So how do you organize your paper piles? Leave a comment and let me know!

Be sure to check out my similair method for organizing my kids’ art, school work, awards, letters, etc. It’s really easy and has cut back on the piles of papers, especially at the end of the school year!

If you liked this project, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin’, and Instagram.

XO, Laura

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