Getting The Most Out Of Your Fashion Magazines
[ 21 October 2007 ]
To me, it has always seemed like a waste to buy a magazine & then, after reading it, to relegate it to your bookshelf, or worse, to the recycling bin. They are so expensive, especially the ones with a smaller print run. I am crazy about buying magazines, I spend hundreds of dollars on them & rarely throw the entire thing away, so I am talking from experience!
Don’t be afraid to tear up your old magazines, or to keep the best pages & scrap the rest. It’s mostly advertising anyway. When it comes to magazines, unless you have a fantastic memory, you will never remember where to look in which issue of what magazine to find that amazing pair of shoes, so it’s much better to have a small stack of your favourite pages than hundreds of magazines piled to the ceiling.
Here are some ways to get the most out of your fashion magazines.
Start keeping a fashion lookbook
Or a scrapbook of the things you like. The individual purpose of the book will be different for everyone — for some people it will be about clothes, for others it might be about writing, design, type-setting or page layout. (If you like all these things, maybe you could buy a few scrapbooks.) Buy a big scrapbook, grab some glue or tape & a blade, settle down with your stacks of magazines & start cutting them up. This can be kind of time consuming, since I find it really hard not to read articles in magazines, but it’s a good way to spend an evening & at the end of it, you will have an amazing scrapbook & far less magazines. Yay!
Frame your favourite covers
Some magazines really do have beautiful covers — too beautiful to just sit on a bookshelf, unappreciated. Use a blade to slice the cover off, & then you can either frame it or hang it in a set. When it comes to a series of pictures on the wall, I like uneven groups the best. Three or five pictures looks much better than two or four to me — more dynamic. Who’s to say you can’t have a series of glamorous old Vogue covers framed along your hallway? No one, that’s who!
Put the best pictures on display in your house
Having my favourite photoshoots from magazines hanging up makes me feel so inspired I can’t even begin to explain it. You can just hang them in groups, or you can do like I do & peg them up along strings. I have two lines going across my living room, one of clear fairy lights & one of fishing line. The clearer you can make the lines, the better — a black rope or anything like that will look quite heavy & you probably don’t want that. I like to use plain wooden pegs (& some with bumblebees on the top!) & I just change the pictures when I get sick of them. Doing this is also a good way to subtley divide a room.
Buy magazine storage boxes & start organising
IKEA has magazine storage boxes that you buy in packs of three & then assemble yourself. They are fantastic, cheap & come in all sorts of designs. Mine are plain white & I’ve put a heart-shaped Post It note on the front of each box, saying which magazine it is (Lula, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar). My shelf of magazines is also organised alphabetically but then… I am a Virgo.
Make envelopes from the pages
It’s very easy. Take two pages you like, tape along three sides, voilà! You can fold the top down like you would for an ordinary envelope, or just tape along there when you’re finished. I would also suggest ensuring that one side of the envelope has a light-coloured, reasonably blank space where you can write the recipient’s address. If not, you can always paint a white square & then write the address over the top, or stick an index card on the front. You get the idea!
Make origami cranes
I have never been good at origami but some people are clever with their fingers & more power to them! (I once had a friend who would make me an origami crane out of his bus ticket every time he came to see me. I kept them in a little row on my bookshelf.) Here is how to make a crane, though you will need to fold your magazine page & cut it to make a perfect square.
Donate them to people who need them
Women’s shelters, doctor’s offices & family planning associations always want more magazines. Usually, being in any of those three places is pretty nerve-wracking. Magazines are a welcome respite from constantly thinking about your abusive husband, infected big toe or broken condom. Eep! So if all else fails, give your magazines away. It’s a great way to de-clutter & contribute something positive at the same time.
Super-love & cupcakes,
Gala
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i have a large collection of very expensive fashion magazines. some of them have stunning editorials and i’d love to make a sort of collage over one wall of my bedroom, but i can’t bear to cut them up… (also, my current crush works for super super magazine, so i keep those so i can sneak looks at him! hee!) xoxo
a bunch of very Awesome ideas! I haven’t make origami in such a long time (I was a pro xD), this makes me want to do some again :D
thanks a lot girl :)!
Ohhhh, bus ticket origami cranes . . . heart melts
Here’s what I like to do with fash-mags:
Keep ‘em for a year. Trends? Who cares! At the start of next winter I may well just want to check up on what I didn’t get around to last winter.
Tear or cut out pages for my Clear-File Folders of Inspiration. It might be a whole look, a garment, a hairstyle, eye makeup or a collar detail – if it speaks to me on some level, I preserve it.
As a teenager, my bedroom was papered with pictures, ads, slogans or even single words from magazines. This was late 80s/very early 90s when supermodels were astonishingly beautiful (Cindy 4 eva!).
Donate the carcass to a local high school’s sewing department (“Fashion Technology” or whatever trendy name they’re using to these days).
I love the strings of pictures hung across the room – a big plus if you wanted to see both sides of the page (which you can also do with a clear-file, of course). If strung-across-the-ceiling isn’t going to work for you, strung-along-the-wall may be more practical.
I LOVE all of these ideas. It breaks my heart to throw magazines away, when there are so many beautiful things in them!!
Lately I’ve been going through the foto_decadent archives and finding fantastic editorials, which I then print out on glossy photo paper to stick on my walls! It’s a bit cheaper than buying the whole magazine, and it means I have access to lots of overseas/long out of print magazines that I otherwise would never have seen!
Your timing couldn’t have been better, Gala, I’m in the process of compiling my first fashion lookbook from old fashion issues starting with last August’s Teen Vogue! Their Balenciaga inspired photo shoot in China made me swoon. I’m also grabbing my favourite runway outfits from this year and sticking them in my book too. I like having beautiful and inspiring things around me too, I usually grab them and stick them in books or on walls where I can look at them everyday. :)
I’ve been planning to make magazine collages in a Moleskine for the longest…but I can’t wait to try out your ideas, too! There are so many articles I have that I want to put on my walls. :D
And actually, I have one of the newer Rolling Stones issues that has a huge article about Hunter S. Thompson that I kept just because I know that you’re a fan! If you haven’t read it yet, I’ll take pictures of the article for you…
Lol. Such good timing. I got up this morning and thought. Today is a Vogue day. I like to leave off buying it until I feel like a bit of a pick me up. Which naturally happens AT LEAST once a month!
I cut out pictures from mags, and have them stuck all over my wall in a huge crazy arrangement. And its colour toned too… ie. all the reddish pics together all the blues… The colours just sort of melt into each other.
Instead of clear wires accross the ceiling, I’m currently using fushia mohair wool! And I have lots of pictures of girl wearing slip dresses and welly boots. My latest love….
Just a little useful fact: The reason that you like sets of three or five together instead of two or four is because those are numbers in the Fibonacci Sequence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number). The numbers can be used in a whole host of ways but they are especially useful in terms of design. For some reason things grouped in sets of numbers from the sequence are more aesthetically pleasing :)
i cant belive you solve the problem of my 7 year old stack of magazines behind my door. I love magazines that much that i still have the first girls magazine i ever bought.
I buy the most ridiculous number of magazines and find that I have added 2 or 3 per week to my stack.
I custom make magazines for my coffee table. I scrapbook the articles and pieces that interest or inspire me most and make my own ‘custom’ mag. Not only do people understand what motivates, inspires and moves me – but they also get to know me a little better. Its gives me an opportunity to share the things I like.
I put a date on all of the custom mags and keep about 5 on the table. Some mags only have 10 or so pages – but I can add to them if I want to.
When I was a teenager, I used to buy Dolly magazine all the time. I have kept the custom mags that I made out of these! My earlies custom mag is from 1987. Talk about a trip down memory lane.
I love my magazines!
I started cutting out things for a scrapbook a few months ago but a couple of days before i had the idea i gave away about 250 good condition magazines to the local doctors surgery and the youth hostel & community centre…so i was a bit upset but still glad tht people had something half decent to read instead of a 5 year old New Idea who’s cover had long sing deteriorated..
Keep Up the good work!
Origami cranes!
I learned how to make cranes when I was 13 and since I studied Japanese (for 5 years!) we had the good fortune to be a host family for an exchange student who used to make them every spare moment.
I even made about 50 or more for our engagement party 2 years ago out of recycled bond paper – and encouraged our guests to take one home which they were all very excited about.
Now I make them for my coworkers when they need a bit of a lift. It seems to cheer people up (just like the story about the 1000 paper cranes!).
I love to buy fashion mags at the beginning of fashion week/when the overseas fashion shows are on because they usually showcase the colours that are going to be very ‘in’ for the next season – and as a designer that is a godsend! If you take the time to tune your sense of colour before the trend hits Australia, then you’ll come up trumps every season. This is true for magazine design and layout too :)
It’s funny how style is all inter-related when it comes to looking good.
P
x
I have a great idea for your next article..
ACCESORIES!!!! maybe how to mix pieces, the best place to buy them and what pieces go with what situation or something like that???
ive only just bcome obsessed with your site for tips n triks etc and you have completly inspired me to run away from the “in” thing and dress to suit my personality. ive even raided my suitcase of old clothes (long story) to find things i can cut and hack at to turn into something more desirable!
You are absolutely awesome and its so great that you have no fear in expressing hu u are and saying what you think..
keep up the awesome work
xx strawberry kisses xx
You have inspired me to cut up my Glamour magazines. Which I’m fine with. But I preserve my copies of Artrocker, Disorder and NME. I have no idea why. I don’t dare throw them away.
I usually cut up my mags and stick them on my cupboard. Its dominated with pictures of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, but when it comes to my more expensive magazines, i absolutely cant bring myself to cutting them up! I feel like im torturing it! Like it deserves to be idolised! XD.
I should really try though!
anyways, fab ideas!
:)
xxx
Oh goodness, cranes are an excellent idea, especially for rainy days! My room seems so empty and blank.. Perhaps a mobile or crane-garland is in order.
Origami stars are just as fun to make! (http://www.foldastar.com/how-to-make-an-origami-star/) They’re super-addicting.. I have a gigantic basket full of them from fidgeting around in high school classes.
thanks gala for writing about this.
i always buy magazines and most of the time they have really good things in them, especially photoshoots. i hate having to throw away the mags, only to need them a couple of days later when they’re gone.
thanks for giving a great idea to help us preserve what we want out of our mags.
So many lovely ideas! In my room at uni I had a wall covered with perfume ads ripped out of magazines. Clustered together they looked beautiful. Also pass them on…to a bored looking person on a plane or a tram or to a friend.
Great ideas!! I looovvvee buying magazines, and i used to keep them, but now i cut most of them up and keep clippings in a folder or box. I put pics in a scrapbook or journal of inspiring things. And i also love to decorate my wall with beautiful and interesting pics!
I’ve always made mini-collages in the pages of my journals to inspire me as I write along.
My absolute favorite use for magazines, now, though, is making 1” pins! I accidentally inherited a button-maker from an old housemate, and it’s been a total creative inspiration. No more mangy rock band buttons on my bag! I particularly like using photos of a beautiful fabric for my pins, and wearing them with contrasting shirts.
I think button machines are rather expensive, but if you can get one second-hand, it’s an excellent investment (a bag of personally made pins is a great little present)
wow i love the way they’ve hung them in the picture, thats really creative! very effective too, and it says a lot about the person whose hanging the pictures. i like!
hahaha I love this! I have a habit of taking all of my favorite pictures out and collaging them on my closet doors as fashion inspirations!
FINALLY someone who agrees with me! i never, ever throw magazines out (unless i’m moving house, or my dear mother does it for me); most of them end up cut to shreds, but still. ah. happiest time of the month that is, when ‘my’ magazines come out.
Do you do anything to the paper before you hang them up to make them stronger? Magazine paper is very flimsy :( I have a scrapbook and I looooove spending a few hours on a weekend chopping up magazines and gluing stuff into it, but sometimes there are pictures I like on both sides and I don’t want to glue them. Hanging them sounds like a great way to see both sides of the page!
FOR ENVELOPES: Carefully peel apart an envelope until it’s unfolded into one big flat sheet. This is your template! (I like the more square envelopes, like for birthday cards, rather than the longer ones for paying bills & such.) Lay your new template over a magazine page, trace around it, and cut. Then just fold & glue/tape the page into an envelope, just like the original one.
You can also make it extra-durable by cutting out 2 of them and using spray adhesive to glue them together neatly (back-to-back), before you fold it into an envelope. These are much less flimsy; plus, you get to choose a separate page/design for the inside, which will be visible when the envelope is opened!
ANOTHER DISPLAY IDEA: I hang clipboards on my walls and display pages from magazines on those. If you get bored of it, just swap it for another page or clip a different one on top!
My friend River can make me cranes out of movie tickets. My fav!
I have at least three Moleskines filled with magazine shoots and ideas! They’re the best for fashion inspiration, and I take them with me when I shop. Plus, I’m a total hussy for Moleskines
:D
LOVE the idea of clipping ‘em up on clear string! I’m moving into my new place in a week and I’m def. gonna do this around my closet!
Brilliant as usual. Thanks, babe!
oooh, and i totally just split a vogue today!
(we’re poor, we had to split the prie of a magazine that contains things we will never afford!)
i loved this article
I have made envelopes out of magazines for like 10 years! I even made my whole zine out of them (which took like 500 years…well, 1-2 years). It’s a fab way to do it cuz most envelopes are boring!
Great ideas.
I have a flat rate (USPS) box put together that I keep in my hall. I fill it up with magazines since I have a subscription to a few. When it’s all filled I ship it to my friend in Florida who doesn’t have the money to spend on magazines. She then gives them to one of her friends there. It’s all about reuse!
Thank you, these are great ideas! I was beginning to wonder what I would do with all my Glamours and Cosmos, hehehehe…The scrapbooks are an amazing suggestion. – Runs to buy albums and scrapbooking materials –
B.
after i have committed every word/image to memory and torn out all the little pics of old movie stars and fantastic shoes to paste into one of my many comp books of fantastical things, then i roll up and use the husks of what were once great magazines to keep my boots from getting the dreaded boot-flop. just roll tightly and insert and all your boots stand tall in a row like good little soldiers.
the rest get stacked in the closet to wrap breakables in the next move (makes packing and unpacking a bit more fabulous!)
So glad you highlighted your passion for magazine covers and awesome spreads. I thought I was the only one who couldn’t wait to put the shots up on my wall. I don’t do it so much anymore — but I definitely felt inspired by surrounding myself with other creative people. Also, whenever I would feel lonely, I would stare at the familiar faces and poses, and know that there is more to life than trivial day-to-day drama. Kudos!!!
Aw that’s such a lovely idea to donate the magazines to people who need them! I’ve had an enormous pile of magazines that has slowly built up over the years and have been wondering for a while what to do with them – Thanks very much for that! :)
I’m going to attempt to create an origami crane! xo
I love magazines with a flamming passion, but I have a hard time finding WHERE to put them, since I just have too many.
But, ever since my sister was in the hospital last year, every 6 months, I gather up all my magazines that I don’t want anymore (which is A LOT, actually) and bring them to the hospital’s waiting rooms.
:3
i LOVE how you hang them. very very cool.
also, teresa, i love how you take them to hospital waiting rooms, so sweet.