I love to throw things away. It just makes me happy. But, when it comes to magazines, I have a hard time letting go.
I started the process of cleaning out my old home office, and realized that I may not need every issue of Southern Living from 2003. . . I also realized that I’ve never met an issue of Better Homes & Gardens that I didn’t like, and that I need to re-subscribe to Traditional Living. And, hasn’t Country Living gotten so much better over the last couple of years?
My dream plan for the office in the new house is to have lots of bookshelves, but I decided to part with lots of magazines anyway. Do you hang onto yours? Or, do you feel it’s less and less necessary with sites like Pinterest?
On another subject, are you watching the new season of Design Star on HGTV?
That dang white box challenge would make me lose my mind. I would hate to know that I finally got my big break on national TV and ended up having to make a rug out of paprika. . . .
My favorite contestant so far is Kellie. I think we would be fast friends.
Me and Cathy? Not so much. . .
What are your thoughts so far?
I’m such a magazine hoarder too. I’ve even tried to figure out how libraries bind up a years worth into one neat “book” in the periodical section.
I have to say I’m a little disappointed with design star so far. I’m just not a big fan of the challenges that have nothing to do with real life design. The airplane white box was cool but I’d rather see them spend their time in real spaces that are beautiful and functional. Next week looks better. Oh and I’m really hoping Cathy’s days are numbered, what a pre-madonna!
Ha- I love your thoughts on Design Star so far. That white box challenge was killer… I would have died. I don’t know if I have a favorite so far, but I am really not digging the girl with the paprika rug either. She seems like she’s got a major attitude, yuck!
abodelove.blogspot.com
Hi, my name is Amanda, and I am also a magazine hoarder (blushing). Love my BH&G!
I am watching Design Star, and I really like Kellie. I like Meg’s personality…just wish she stepped it up more for the White Box. Cathy is soooo bossy/over the top. And also the host (Tanika) makes me feel like I’m listening to a contestant in the Miss America Pageant. She is just too showy with her lines.
I’m with Amanda… I need to attend Magazine Hoarders Anonymous, too. Im a neat freak, but magazines are my weakness. I keep them neatly stacked in places around my house and in magazine sleeves… I just can’t let go!
I keep some of my magazines for sure! I don’t have that many places to let them pile up, so I have no choice but to let some go occasionally. I just close my eyes and trash. Design Star is DVRed but I haven’t watched it yet!
Major magazine hoarder here. I’ve owned three houses in my “adult life”, moved after about five years & it helped me clean out my collection. I’ve been in my current home going on 10…can we say magazine monster in the office ; ) I think I may have to move to clean them out : )
Love Design Star, I agree Cathy needs to let go, style, creativity and control. Should be interesting : )
I hate getting rid of magazines, but I know every once in a while I have to edit.
I have dvded Design Star and I haven’t watched it yet. I will let you know.
Susan
Emily I FINALLY cleared out magazines, really had no idea how many I had kept!
It was a great feeling actually. I am seriously editing!
xoxo
Karena
Art by Karena
Do come and enter my new Giveaway, a very special painting!
I love magazines too! I do look at them less now that I’m addicted to Pinterest, but I still have to have them. Country Living is really stepping up their game. Didn’t used to be a fan, but certainly am now!
I love to throw things away too, but I also struggle with magazines. I try to tear out my favorite images and just keep those, but I have a really hard time getting rid of House Beautiful. You’re right though, with Pinterest, it’s way easier to get rid of things. At least since you’re a designer, you have a good reason to keep everything! :)
So happy to see that I’m not the only one to hang on to magazines. I can’t throw them out and yet I rarely look at them and we DON’T have the space for them. Perhaps I’ll do some cleaning out later today.
guessing that there are many of us mag hoarders! lol ;) i hang on to them and actually mark the pages i found the most inspiring.
design star was again, a bit of a disappointment. i understand their reasoning for having the white box challenge.. to push the designers out of their comfort zones/boxes.. though it seems crazy to most of us. loved the nod to the air force [hubs is retired :) so how could i not be moved by his tribute to his grandfather] a few of the safe peeps were interesting in a graphic sort of way, including Kellie. [loved the whimsy of the footprints!] but, like most, i’m looking forward to normal challenges, in normal spaces.
I’m sorry, where exactly did you get your kelly green file cabinet? Did you paint that? Gracious that’s cute.
WHY do I cling to a million 10 year old magazines when I can’t seem to keep up with the pile of recent issues growing in my family room? Good point….with Pinterest and blogs, I don’t need them. Umm, sortof?
I haven’t watched it yet, I have it recorded…can’t wait!! My husband is hating the summer time because there’s nothing to watch on tv but design shows…I love it!
I used to save all my magazines too, but now I just rip my favorite pages out and save them in a binder.
http://www.inside-outdesign.blogspot.com
I always tend to hoard my magazines! Escpecially the ones that are related to Interior Design. For some reason I always think I will refer back to them. But, I’ve found that I really just search the internet…so no need to create more piles.
And Design Star yes I’ve been watching! Leslie and Mark are my favorites. The white box episode was so fun but it would very much intimidate me to have to work with coffee grinds (as Meg did- and wasn’t very successful).
I recently sorted my magazines too! The ones I really can’t give up are from my design school college days-too sentimental. For my cooking mags. I cut out recipes I want to use and file them into a binder so I can organize them, then recycle the rest of the magazines. Some of the decor mags. I take to half price books and make a bit of money back.
I read a ton of magazines. My husband actually gets annoyed with how much we spend on subscriptions. I will read the magazine (mark ideas I want to keep) and keep it for a month. When I get the new one in the mail I cut the ideas I wanted out of the old one and file them in the appropriate binders. Hopefully I will be posting a blog about how I organize my clippings soon.
Mandy
http://a37s42.blogspot.com/
I used to be a big hoarder of magazines…but then I ran out of space. In my pre-Pinterest life, I dog-earred pages I liked from magazines and then cut out the articles/pictures and organized them into folders (Ha! Just like Pinterest). Even though I have pinterest now, I still find that I like the hard copies of pictures, so I still collect my dog-earred magazine pages.
I don’t know what it is about those darn magazines and why we can’t seem to toss them out? Some days I want to just close my eyes and let them go to the recycle bin. I have resulted to a small narrow closet I have in my bedroom and I just pile them all in there and close the door.
Design Star? No comments because I don’t watch it.
i love magazines but i cannot stand clutter… so I LOVE Pinterest. its a lifesaver (and tree saver) ! xoxo jillian:: cornflake dreams
I have your same problem with magazines! I have a ton of them in laying in piles in my office. I really need to organize them. I haven’t watched a Design Star episode yet, but I should really catch up.
Kristy
http://www.idesignlove.com
Im a magazine hoarder too! Do you know that the Domino magazines are going for $25 and up on ebay?!! Thats PER magazine.
Domino and Cottage Living have scared me into being a magazine hoarder. I only wish I was one back when they were around. Since then, I’ve kept every issue of House Beautiful, Coastal Living and Real Simple. Those are the main three magazines that I subscribe to. My mother-in-law gets Traditional Home. She passes it to me when she’s finished. I keep the ones that have inspirations in them only…I guess simply because I don’t subscribe.
I am watching Design Star but haven’t watched last night yet. It’s DVRed for later. I’ll have to catch up with you guys!
OMG Design Star. Cathy and I would not be friends at all. She annoys the daylights out of me. I get it. You are great on TV, but good lord woman you are too much for me–that’s me to Cathy LOL.I am a big fan of Leslie. Kellie is my #2 :)
My name is Lisa and I’m a magaholic.
You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was for me to part with my treasured mags when we moved overseas! I did end up cutting out pages that I loved and compiling them into a couple of binders – I just couldn’t rip off that bandaid completely.
Thanks to Zinio with their online versions, I can still get many of my favourites digitally while I’m in Dubai at a fraction of the cost of an international subscription. While I miss thumbing through the real thing, gotta love technology! :)
Oh my goodness, I feel like you are peeking into my life! As I read your blog, I am procrastinating going through my “laundry/craft storage room” which has design magazines, (I hoard BH&G DoItYourself and MakeOver Style) knitting magazines (I NEED those patterns!) Sew Beautiful (I WILL smock again when I have grandchildren many years into the future!) and Family Fun. (I’m sure my daughter, the future teacher can use them) HELP!!! I need to check out Pinterest, but first I have to sort through my “keepers”.
Last week’s Design Star made me happy (loved the bonus room and great room) last night’s made me nervous. I really like Kellie, Leslie and Karl. There seems to be a little too much of the “Industrial Chic” which I think works in urban lofts, but most of us live in homes and like to feel comfortable…
I need to stop subscribing to so many magazines! Then I wouldn’t have as many to hoard :) But they often have such great, timeless ideas. I am trying to organize them, maybe by ripping out pages and putting them in clear inserts in a binder, if I can do that neatly.
One reason I hang onto magazines is for websites/businesses mentioned. I use them as a resource. To cut down on clutter, I’ll try to find the website or contact information of the resource and bookmark it online. Then I have a digital reference but I can throw out the actual paper.
My DH was very kind and moved boxes and boxes of magazines around three different states and four different houses for me over in the US. When we moved abroad it was so painful to get rid of so many of my favorites but I did sneak 3 boxes in the stuff to bring! Pinterest is fantastic and I am so grateful for all of the fantastic online magazines but for me there is nothing better than a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and a new magazine. French magazines are amazing….so wish my French reading skills were as well but boy do I miss the US publication!
I am a magazine junkie too. I did a huge cleanout last year and have to admit I miss them sometimes. I agree, BH&G are always worth saving but I had some that were over well 10 years old! Thats a little crazy! I also saved quite a few Cottage living which are no longer printed.
Oh it is sooo refreshing to know that I am not the only one who hoards Design magazines!! I have been trying to be better about it and have also subscribed to a couple on my iPad, but really it’s just not the same. I often rip pages and put them in various piles – blog post inspiration, client inspiration, my dream home…the list goes on!!! Thanks for ‘exposing’ the truth!! Cheers! Becky Tellefsen
I usually go through a magazine twice…. once just a glance and the second to read some. I then tear out the pages of the stuff I really like and throw the magazine away. Only problem with that is now I have a bunch of loose magazine pages stuffed in a drawer and not organized :)
I am a major magazine hoarder too. Every now and then I decide to go thru them to see what I can throw out, spend hours paging thru and then throw out maybe 1 or 2! I can get rid of everything else very easily – but not my magazines!
I DVR’d Design Star but I have been too caught up in the Bachelorette to watch!
-Shelley
I have periodical passion too….I’ve even once tried to just cut out what I like, I discovered I like the whole thing and quit doing that. :)
I’m with you Cathy.
I love throwing things away, also! But you’re right- magazines are hard to part with. At school I save all of them, because I never know if I need any of the images for a project. At home I just have a basket in my room filled with 10 or so (:
Design Star…I love Kellie, too. I think she’s so great. Some of the guys are very innovative, too, though! Don’t care for Cathy…too bossy. And I’m sorry, but the host’s voice is on my nerves!
Oooh…I too am a thrower! And my living room floor looked just like this a month or so ago: magazines all in piles to sort. But yes, it IS so hard to throw those away…I mean, inspiration comes to me over and over again with some issues. LOL!
I used to save every single issue of every magazine I received. After moving for the third time in two years, I decided to throw them all out. (Actually I sold them in a yard sale to a young girl, which made it easier to part with them knowing that someone else would get the same joy out of them that I did!) I remember working for a designer who had saved every issue of Elle Decor there ever was, and issues of older magazines since the 80’s. I admired her collection. . . .but carting those heavy boxes around from apartment to apartment, just wasn’t realistic!
I used to hoard mags, but then coverleaf.com came along. It is the digital copy of magazines that I subscribe too…. I use it mainly for BH&G. You can clip a page and save it in a folder. It’s free if you already subscribe to the magazine.
Now I can share my mags with friends and still have the pages I wanted saved.
As for design star – love Kellie too, Cathy not so much, she is too formal and know it all-ish. And the tile end table! Not so cute…or a new idea. I like Meg, and kitschy chic guy. He makes me laugh because he can hardly keep his body still while talking he so excited about design.
Don’t you think they need a goodwill/Sally army challenge?
I am watching design star too. I totally agree about the white box challenge. It would be so hard! I also agree about Kelly! She’s my favorite so far and she’s from Oklahoma where I live. :-)
Not to be catty, but Cathy would drive me insane. AND, oh no, looking at these pictures I just realized your pretty office is no more! I’m sure you’ll reinvent it in your new home just as beautifully, if not more so. And no, I’m not hoarding my magazines, they can quickly take over the house! Janell
I am such a magazine hoarder too! We are packing up our house now and I will be honest, I didn’t part ways with any of my shelter mags. And, Design Star, I feel ya! What a let down to have to make a whole room out of spices and water bottles!
I cant throw magazines. I have only recently started throwing the weekly ones as it was way too much. My mom back at home saves all my Vogue magazines from my teenager years, LOVE her!
Yes, I hang on to magazines but I have let some go.I keep all my Southern Accents, Veranda and Traditional Home. I got some white wood magazine holders from the container store so they look better. It is hard to let go of them, they are like text books to us designer types. Yes, I agree I like Kelly the best and Kathy not so much at all. It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds,Kathysue
I love a good magazine – but I hate clutter! I keep them out for a month to flip through before bed or while I am waiting on something good to come on TV. Then, I rip out the good stuff, file it in a binder with tabs by what it is (kitchen, bedroom, beth, etc) and recycle the rest. It’s just going to collect dust anyway!
I love magazines! I absolutely hate to get rid of them! Would if I would ever get an invitation to pin.
Glad to know we all have the same hoarding problem :)
Elizabeth–send me your email address and I can send you a Pinterest invite from my account.
Oh magazines… they are hard to let of, but I finally did when we moved six months ago.
As for design star, Kellie is my fav so far, but I’m hoping to see more from Meg. I think she has it in her, and she seems like such a sweetie.
I really like Karl. I thought a lot of them did really well compared to some white box shows in the past. Although it is almost like an art/craft project more than design. I love someone’s idea that they should have a Goodwill/Thrift Store challenge. Did you notice that Leslie’s idea of the letters on the wall had been done last season with the letters (just like that) on the couch?
Kellie is a best high-school friend of one of my good girlfriends! Keep rooting for her!
Pinterest certainly helps me to get rid of magazines, but I kick myself daily for getting rid of my issues of Domino and Cottage Living. Who knew they’d go out of business? Fortunately, some of my favorite rooms from those magazines pop up on blogs and i can pin them!
Camille
Emily,
I’m with you. Cathy just has an air of superiority about her, but Emily is so down to earth and sweet. I just don’t understand why HGTV gives them such strange challenges, such as telling them their white room need not be functional and shopping at restaraunt supply company???? It’s so unrealistic and uninteresting.
I am the same way! I love to throw things out and find such pleasure in it, but my magazines are a totally different story! I dogear pages and think that one day {before I throw it out} I will rip out all of these pages and fill up my binders.. style, home, garden, cooking…ect. Besides cooking I have yet to actually hole punch these pages and put them in the binder! Glad it is not just me!
Tiffany {Living Savvy}
http://www.savvydesignwest.com
I have a design star post scheduled for tomorrow and just saw yours from today! Guess mine’s going to be a repeat :)
I too am a magazine hoarder. I created a design notebook several months ago because I was running out of space for my magazine collection. I keep only the pages tht inspire me.
As for Design Star Kellie is my favorite too. Love Meg too and hoping she delivers next week And Cathy is my not so favorite. I was disappointed in the White Box challenge. Looking forward to next week. They always screw up on the house challenge.
If you could only see how many magazines I have stored in my basement…drives my husband nuts. I cannot get rid of Country Living…their photographs are so beautiful!
I’m loving DS. Leslie, Karl, and Kellie are my favorites. Cathy makes me want to poke my eyes out! If she mentions her “world travels” one more time….!!!
Another mag hoarder right here! I tried to recycle after 2 years but it’s hard. I just don’t have the space for all of them in our house right now. I’ve been watching Design Star and I’m not overwhelmed so far but I’m giving it a chance. I can’t think of the name of my favorite gal right now but she almost went home – I just like her energy and I think she has some potential to do amazing stuff.
I think we should start a magazine hoarders club.
This is the first Design Star I’ve seen and the only thing I don’t like is the ridiculously huge budgets everyone seems to have. They don’t even talk about them they are so big. I’m hoping they get more into the reality of designing and less into the dream zone they’ve been in.
I guess since I still have my ‘collection’ of the long defunt Victoria magazine in my attic, and also have all my Domino mags, I’d have to say yes. Though many others, I pass along to friends and family. I got tht from my mothers.
Cathy has to go!
I have pinterest but I still go through all my magazines and rip out what I want to keep. than i toss them!
Funny you should mention it! I went through my magazines the other day and removed all the pages I found inspiring, and put them in a binder with plastic sleeves.
I scan the magazine images/articles that I love so I can keep them on a hard drive to refer to if I want. Even doing this, I STILL can’t manage to get rid of certain magazines issues. Someday.
Totally following you on Pinterest now. Yay! Design Star… I like Karl and Meg quite a bit so far, but it’s really hard to tell who consistently stands out. I’m with you on Cathy. Eek. Those white box challenges are so low on time and resources that it would be scary!