Magazines: My Favorites and How To Organize Them
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Fellow magazine lovers, this post is for you. I’m sharing all of my favorite magazines and additionally, I’m showing you how I keep them organized in order to avoid the clutter and to be able to find exactly what I need when I need it.
Magazines: My Favorites and How To Organize Them
Okay, this may be a really odd/slightly obsessive post to folks who don’t read magazines. For those that love magazines as much as I do, this post is going to be a wealth of helpful information.
I noticed the other day that the basket of magazines in my living room was overflowing and magazines were falling onto the floor. It was a nice reminder that my magazine collection needed some attention. I thought I would take you along and show you how I keep my magazines (mostly) in order and the number of magazines I have to a minimum.
I have been a lover of print magazines for as long as I can remember. I used to flip through shelter magazines at my grandparent’s house while I waited for my mom to pick me up after delivering newspapers. This love has continued into adulthood. I have subscriptions to 12+ magazines and I still get a tickle of excitement when I open the mailbox and see a new issue.
Since I enjoy magazines so much and subscribe to too many, I never want this joy to become a burden. Years ago I used to have stacks and stacks of magazines everywhere and all they did was overwhelm me. Now, I have a system in place that encourages me to only keep one year’s worth of magazines on hand while also saving the stories, content, and recipes, that I love.
Everything is wonderfully organized, I can find what I need, and my love of magazines stays joyful instead of overwhelming. Mission accomplished!
Ready for my system? I’ll walk you through step-by-step and when I’m finished, I’ll give you a rundown of my favorite magazines.
Magazine Organization Sources:
Since I know there are going to be questions about sources, I thought I would get that out of the way first. These things are not required, but I find them really helpful tools to keep me organized. You’ll see how I use them as I explain the process below.
- magazine holders
- vinyl and mesh pouches (letter-size)
- hyacinth basket (medium)
- label maker
- large round basket (from HomeGoods)
Magazine Organization
Step One: New magazines go into the basket.
The first step is pretty simple. I have a large round basket in my family room. Anytime a new magazine comes into the house, it goes into this basket. Typically I will flip through a new magazine once or twice before it ends up in the basket, but this is where any new magazines go.
Step Two: When the basket is full, move half of the magazines to magazine holders.
When this basket is almost full, it means it’s time to organize. (And yes, there have been occasions when this basket is overflowing.) What I do is take the bottom half of the magazines (usually the oldest magazines) and move them to magazine holders that are located in my office.
I have 12 magazines holders. Here is the organizational breakdown:
- January and February
- March and April
- May and June
- July and August
- September and October
- November and December
- Fall Magazines/Bookazines
- Christmas Magazines/Bookazines
- Recipe Bookazines
- Home Bookazines
- Other
- Other
Side note: A bookazine is like a book but in a magazine form. It’s a magazine that costs $10-$20 and covers a broad topic like Christmas, Fall Baking, etc.
Based on my current magazine subscriptions, there is just enough room (specifically in the monthly magazine holders) to hold everything comfortably. The magazines will live here for a year. Since they are organized, I can easily reference them when needed.
Step Three: Seasonally sort through magazines older than one year.
As you can see, right now everything has a place. But what happens when things start to overflow?
My goal is to only keep a magazine for one year*.
I work through my stored magazines seasonally. Usually, I have a day or two that I spend brainstorming content for the blog and gathering seasonal inspiration for my home. This is when I’ll set aside time to pull a stack of magazines from the magazine holders and go through them one more time before I recycle them.
This will free up space for when the basket in my living room gets full again.
*This is not always the case with the bookazines. I will keep them until I’m done with them or until they no longer fit in the magazine organizers. And in all honesty, there are a few series of bookazines that I can’t part with so there are exceptions to every rule.
Step Four: Tear out sheets and recycle the rest of the magazine.
As I mentioned above, I like to give my magazines a final look before I get rid of any given ones.
When I’m flipping through the magazines, I tear out anything I love. It could be a design element, decor idea, recipe, a color scheme, something I want to research more, a product I want to check out, etc. I usually go through a stack of about 20 magazines at a time. It seems like a lot, but I usually watch something on TV, and by the time the movie is over the task is complete. (Lately, I’ve been doing this in the mornings while I have my coffee instead of scrolling through my phone. It’s been a better way to start the day.)
Each tear-out goes into a keep pile and then I recycle the rest of the magazine since it is no longer needed. Pretty simple.
Step Five: Sort tear-out sheets into vinyl pouches.
Next, I take my stack of tear-outs and organize them. I found these zippered vinyl and mesh pouches and I love them. They are a game changer, friends. The size is right, they are durable, have a zipper closure, and take up very little space.
I have about 10 of these pouches. They are sorted by categories such as spring, summer, fall, winter, Christmas, home, etc. I also have one labeled “current” for things that I’m referencing at the moment.
As you can see, each pouch is labeled so I can reference what I need quickly.
I store all of these pouches in a large basket on a shelf in my office. Whenever I need a dose of inspiration or an idea for a project, I can quickly reference what I found to be the most valuable parts of my favorite magazines.
I will also sort through these pouches every so often and trash what I no longer need or what’s no longer inspiring to me.
Step Six: Repeat
And that’s it! I just repeat this process seasonally or whenever that basket of magazines in my living room is full.
I suppose that this may seem like a daunting process, but isn’t any new organizational effort kind of overwhelming? I’m not an organized person by nature, but when I have systems like this in place, I realize how beneficial they can be to mental clarity, productivity, and even happiness.
Now, onto my favorite magazines!
My Favorite Magazines
I’m not going to give you a detailed description of why I like all of these magazines. However, I will list them in order starting with my favorites and working down the list. I like them all, some just make me happier when they appear in my mailbox.
I also did my best to link them all so if you’re looking to subscribe, the process should be pretty easy.
- Country Home
- Country Living
- Country Living UK
- English Home
- Bake from Scratch
- Better Homes & Gardens
- Martha Stewart Living
- Cottage and Bungalows
- Artists Magazine
- Cottage Journal
- HGTV Magazine
Favorite Bookazines:
- Christmas Ideas Magazine
- BHG Halloween
- Taste of Home Seasonal/Compilations
And that’s a wrap on my favorite magazines and how I organize them! I really hope you found this helpful!
Have I missed your favorite? Are there magazines I should be reading that aren’t on my list? Let me know in the comments below.
Wow we are kindred spirits! Lol. I thought I was the only one who did this! I love the pouches! I have a file folder that is divided, but I like this better! Thank you so much. I really enjoy your blog. You always have great ideas!
Thanks,
Becky
Thank you SO much for the magazine / organization article. I love magazines too (also love magazine day in the mailbox) and have them stacked everywhere but it’s so hard to part with them. I do occasionally go cut throat and recycle a bunch at once. I like your only save a years worth idea. Makes keeping them around a bit easier. I currently have Fall Country Home 2020 on the top of my stack. 🙂
Love your ideas here since so many of us have the magazine addiction.
My favorite is Southern Lady. Great recipes & ideas for entertaining.
Love Southern Lady too. Such a pretty magazine.
You might enjoy Southern Living, Southern Lady, and Cuisine. Cuisine has the best recipes and photos of food. I have over 20 years worth filed in a fashion similar to yours. I have explained to my husband not to interrupt when a magazine arrives and I I can stop, enjoy a cup of tea and peruse one of my favorites.
Magazines-I have a problem!!! I love magazines too-especially the Somerset publications. As mentioned above, books on Kindle are fine with me, but magazines have to be in print! The digital issues are just not the same. I keep my torn out articles in plastic sleeves in binders. It’s a system that works for me!
I have loved magazines for 40 years! Mine have always been home decor because I love getting ideas. I have finally weaned mine down to just a few but it’s still so much fun to receive A magazine in my mailbox. I love your system. I have tried binders for my tear out pages but they are cumbersome. The pouches are great – thank you for sharing!
I LOVE MAGAZINES TOO. And my mom and grandma did too – I’ve had to purge their collections too. Love the zippered pouches and will be purchasing them. Thanks for the advice – I needed it!
My name is Vicki and I have a magazine problem. 🙂 I second the Garden & Gun recommendation. Good essays and inspiration from fellow creatives. Fun to see your system!
So fun!! Try Garden & Gun, and I do enjoy Magnolia Journal, too. Of course, I also love Where Women Create because of the studio spaces. And Darling. Lol. I also have a problem.
Oh how I love a good stack of magazines, especially on a stormy day! One that I enjoy is Entertain and Celebrate . I usually head to the library before a storm and stock up on my favorites.
I suggest Midwest Living, Southern Living and Country Sampler. I miss Country Gardens magazine, Flea Market Decor and Flea Market Style.
I’m an addict to but I am not as good about keeping up with going through and with filing articles. A project for when I retire in a month and a half. You might like British Country Home and Period Living. I love Landscape too, but I am a real Anglophile. Not so fond of HGTV magazines because I find all the rooms and decorating too much the same. and not so much my style.
Fellow addict here, & I actually have a “system” in place that is very similar to yours, right down to the baskets & pouches for tear-outs. My selection of magazines is a bit different — fewer on home decor & more on fashion/style plus Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone & Scientific American 🙂 . Interestingly (to me, probably no one else), my husband, who’s been a motorcycle fanatic his entire life & subscribes to every Harley & road bike magazine on the planet, appears to have NO system whatsoever beyond “toss it on that pile over there & if it tips over, start another one” & yet can put his hands on any article he’s looking almost instantly even if it’s from years ago. No, I don’t understand how he does it either. Thanks for this, Michael. It’s nice to know we’re not alone in our love of tactile paper magazines in this digital world.
Oh, & I meant to add that I **love** the zooooomcat photo in Step Two. It looks very much like my cat, who appears in most photos as nothing but a blur with feet. The only shots I seem to be able to get of her when she’s not moving at Warp 5 is when she’s curled up in a ball sound asleep, when she looks like a perfectly round blob with no distinguishing bits at all.
just want to say: same to all. my husband rolls his eyes as i sit on the couch, going through magazines, tearing things out. “will you ever look at that again?” he asks. maybe, dude. maybe not. who cares. and when we were building our house (pre-pinterest), i created a binder of what i loved, and it clearly showed my style and common threads between things that appealed to me. made the process SO much more smooth. magazine junkies UNITE and stand proud!! 😉
I don’t subscribe to as many magazines as I used to, but always pull pages that inspire me. I’ve started searching Pinterest for the articles I want to save – they are almost always pinned there by someone else. I pin them to my boards and don’t have to save any paper. Works well for me!
This is a great idea! Thanks for sharing.
Oooooh, I love this post!!!! (And I must say, I’m loving the frequent posts lately, I miss you when you don’t post regularly!!) My love of magazines has faded somewhat, and I’m down to just three subscriptions, BHG, Midwest Living and Cottages and Bungalows, but I have a similary organization system in place. They go from curent reads into magazine holders, where I keep 12 months. Although for Christmas Ideas and BHG Halloween, they each have their own holder, but I have about 16 years of issues, and I’m running out of room. I have to decide if I’ll add another holder for the overflow, or get rid of the oldest year. And before I recycle, I tear out spreads that I love. I have an expandable folder full of inspiration, but what I love best is seeing what I thought was pretty 25+ years ago. 🙂
I love my Kindle for books, but must have the paper magazines. I follow a similar organization process and love the idea of the pouches!! Southern born and bred, so no home is complete without Southern Living.
Great system Michael!
My magazine time is very special to me, especially with the fall and winter issues. Have scads of old issues i am going through little by little because I don’t want to miss anything! Eventually I will weed them all out and be actively following your method.
I’m a magazine junkie too and definitely need the print version over digital! You might want to try American Farmhouse Style, Country Sampler Farmhouse Style and for a little bit of everything including organizing ideas – Real Simple.
I’m a magazine junkie too! But no Kindle versions for me. I love the feel and gloss of the paper. We share many of the same favorites but one thing I’ve done for years is to keep the Oct., Nov., Dec. issues of magazines as they represent my favorite seasons/holidays. I have some Country Home and Country Living mags from the eighties! LOL Yep, I’m that girl. But I don’t part with my Country Home, Cottage Journal and Country Farmhouse issues. Those are keepers. I’ll be utilizing your ideas for keeping those organized.
You might enjoy Fine Gardening and/or Garden Gate, too.