Magazine Magic

If you're anything like me, you may have quite a few editions of your favorite magazines around the house. As much as I love reading books, magazines have always been my guilty pleasure. They're generally cheaper to buy than a book, easier to skim through, and I don't feel nearly as bad about giving them away after reading through them only once (whereas I often feel like I can just check a book out of the library instead of paying so much cash for it!) 

Last week I promised you a few ideas on how to de-stash your magazines -- how to turn your Magazine Mayday into Magazine Magic, if you will. 

First things first... if you're done with your magazines and they're still in one piece, pass them on! Ask at local hospitals and doctors' offices if they would like your magazines. I often pass them onto friends or even thrift stores. 

Schools and summer camps may also be on the lookout for magazines for craft projects. Be sure yours are age appropriate (no nudity or even Cosmo, please...) 

Often times though, my magazines are not intact... especially if they have numerous knitting patterns or recipes or great articles I want to read again. In this case, I tear out the stuff I want to keep, make a new book or folder out of the compiled pages, and throw the magazines into a separate pile for recycling. (In some cases, places that want the magazines for crafts, may still want these ripped apart magazines!) 

Other ideas for excess magazines, especially if you've already torn out a bunch of stuff: 

A flower garland (there is a link at the bottom of her post for the actual instructions.)

Envelopes! 

As a teenager and in college, I crafted numerous letters and envelopes to friends from my old Glamour magazines. My envelopes weren't fancy... I would just tear out the page and fold and tape the thing into a rectangular envelope. 

Then I'd put a sticky label on the envelope for the address. If the outside of the envelope has enough white space though, you can always just write the address in it! If you want something similar but slightly more precise (let's be real, I didn't even cut a line down the one side. I just ripped the page...) then you can see a more detailed how-to here.

Wreathes

More wreathes

Christmas trees

You can also reuse neat photo pages from magazines as gift-wrapping for small items, or to use as packing paper when mailing fragile things.  

If a photo or design strikes my fancy, I tend to put it in my paper stash for later use on a handmade card or scrapbook page.

Finally, give your excess magazines to your kids! To this day I have an affinity for the Burpee Gardening Seed Catalog because my mom let me have her old ones to destroy for crafty things. I can't tell you how many paper 'gardens' I created out of those catalogs, but I know simply cutting out flowers and vegetables and then pasting them onto plain paper kept me occupied for hours! 

What other ideas do you have for recycling and reusing your magazines?