Friday, May 30, 2008

This week's project

I went to visit my Mom this week for a couple of days. I had planned on getting rid of this while I was down there:


Not the bag, mind you. Isn't it all cute and pink? Our Women's Ministry gave these out at our Women's retreat last year. But I digress. Since The Nester posted today about a project she was looking at in one of her Southern Livings, it reminded me of this bag. Again, not the bag, but what's in it.

This mess actually resulted from my sweet hubby throwing out about 50 or so of my treasured Southern Living magazines. I had been keeping them, intending to go through them and keep the articles and recipes I wanted. I had a huge box of them waiting to go through, and he was "helping" me declutter and threw them out before checking with me. He didn't understand why I stayed mad at him for two days. Now, I should have been happy that he was getting rid of stuff, but why'd it have to be my stuff? (I love you, sweetheart!)

So, here's what I started doing to cut down on the clutter: As I'm reading a magazine I mark which articles I want to keep. After I've finshed the magazine (okay, maybe after I've collected a few) I take out the articles I want to keep and put them in one of several notebooks. Here's my collection of notebooks:


No, they're not pretty. No, they're not neatly organized. But, they are mine and I love them. They have my favorite things in them that inspire me to do things in my house. Not that I've actually done any of the things. But I'm inspired to. I take that back. I think I've done a couple of Christmas ideas. I label them for the areas I collect for: Christmas, Other Holidays and Celebrations, Outside, Inside, and Travel.

Here's the inside of my Inside folder (isn't that clever?):



I don't necessarily want to do everything on each page, but something on the page may catch my eye, like the plates on the wall in the picture above. I realize my house will not ever be in Southern Living, but I can make my home beautiful in my own way.

What does this have to do with that bag? Well, that's where all my magazines were that I wanted to pull articles out. Sigh...and the bag is still full. I went through a couple of them, but I still have a pile left. If there just weren't so many beautiful things I wanted to do...

4 comments:

Unknown said...

hi! i stumbled on your blog through pioneer woman :) i LOVE your magazine idea! i have the same problem of accumulating magazines for a few articles. thanks for your suggestions!

if you enjoy magazines, i have a giveaway every friday, and this weekend's happens to be a magazine subscription! you should stop by and enter!

Kimba said...

Hey girl,

Good idea. I have a bad habit of never throwing away magazines and it can become a bit of a mess. I keep saying I'm going to pull out the pics or articles that interest me but I can't figure out how I want to organize them.

I have a friend who keeps these beautiful scrapbooks of magazine pictures that she loves. I'm always amazed when she pulls them out.

Tracey said...

I do the same thing but I 3 hole punch and put them in the binder for easy flipping.

I need to see a photo of your new stove! Way to go on doing your part to stimulate the economy!

Anonymous said...

LoL HA I remember the day we came by there and you wouldnt tell my mom bout the folders on the bench til she looked at your blog. lol just tought id let you know that i remember. lol

kristen