Getting The Most Out Of Your Fashion Magazines
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!
![String up your favourite pictures String up your favourite pictures](/images/07-10/line.jpg)
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, voilĂ ! 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.