Organizing tip for magazines

Have you ever found an article in a magazine that you wanted to save? So you keep the magazine and throw it in your stack of other magazines you are saving. Later when you want to read the article or try the recipe, you have no clue in which magazine it was in. You spend an hour flipping through the magazines in the stack and never can find what you are looking for.

Here's what I do and it works great. I know exactly where every article is.

I bought three ring notebooks and the plastic page protectors that let you slide pages down into them. I have several notebooks; home, recipes, holidays, garden, crafts and travel. I started with just one notebook, over the last several years, I have had to give each of my categories their own notebook.
If I find something I want to do to my kitchen, I rip out the article and place it in my home notebook. Find a decorating tip for Halloween, rip it out and place it in my "holiday" book, find someplace I would love to visit, rip it out and file it in my "Travel" notebook.


Here are floor plans I wanted to save, they are filed in my "home" notebook.

And these notebooks are my Garden and Holiday. As you can see in the pic. I found some outdoor fireplaces, they are filed in my "garden" book, and the fall centerpieces are filed in my "Holiday" notebook under fall.

Even the pockets in the back of the notebooks come in handy. In my "home" notebook, I keep a sample of my paint colors, fabric, receipts, etc. for each room. In my "garden" book I keep the little tabs that come in each of the potted flowers you buy. When I plant something and need to look at the instructions on watering or planting conditions, I know right where they are.

Now I don't have stacks of magazines. When a magazine comes in the mail, I sit down and read it, tear out what I want to save and get rid of the magazine.