Mom...really...really mom?

"Seriously mom, the date on this magazine is 1998."

which I replied...

"Well at least it's not 1995 like this one"

which she replied...

"Mom...really...really mom?"

(with that face and tone of a precious preteen)

That is somewhat of a recent exchange between my kiddo and I, not word for word, but you get the picture. Okay I will admit I seem to have this slight, well...maybe more than a slight habit of buying magazines.

Not just any magazines mind you, specifically magazines devoted to home decor, home styling, flea marketing, trash to treasure, DIY, yard and gardening, etc. etc.

A little history...

Years ago I studied home interior design via a correspondence school home study program. It was fun and I really did learn a lot. The time was before fancy design programs were available on the computer,  (I actually bought one of those programs recently, and that is another story), so I got into the habit of picking up magazines to search for ideas and colors for lesson projects.

If I remember correctly I think my first subscription was for Country Living and after that I was hooked. On my behalf though, while I may pick up an occasional magazine at the store...I only have one (1) actual subscription right now. So I can proudly say I don't blow a lot of the household budget on those pesky subscriptions that seem to always have renewals coming due.

It's probably worse buying them at the store...

Have you seen the price of some of those magazines lately? I refuse to pay $9.99 on a single issue of a magazine no matter how enticing it may be or what it may have in it. That being said, it doesn't mean I haven't caved in and actually done it, and then promptly suffered from a major case of buyers remorse.

Back to my current collection

At one time I had stacks and stacks of magazines that if I had to guess, probably would have piled up several feet high and several feet wide. So in my defense I have sent most of them on their way to the recycling bin, never mind that some of them probably dated back to before recycling was cool.

Honestly, I have tried to do what some organizing experts out there have suggested. Tear out pictures and articles and then put them in an alphabetized folder. But where is the fun in that? And yes I tend to read those magazines about "creative storage solutions."

There are times when I would much rather sit with a hot cup of coffee or tea and browse thru those magazines for the millionth time, than watch mindless television programming...unless of course my hubby isn't home and I can get away with watching marathon episodes on HGTV or DIY. (That's another story.)

So now the trick is to balance my time and not spend too much time lost in those magazines, continue weeding some of them out and being reasonable about how many I really need to keep. Those crafty projects made out of rolled magazine pages are looking more and more interesting, if I could only bring myself to tear them apart.

And then...what to do about the time I spend browsing thru all of the fabulous blogs on the internet that cover all of the same subjects as those darn magazines and then some...SIGH...what's a creative minded, junk obsessed mom to do?

 This is just a little bit of what I have left, so I think I'm doing pretty well.

Fifty or so magazines take up much less space than several hundred.

As for my kiddo...

I think it's time we go thru the cabinet drawers in our front room that are crammed with all of her copies of Tiger Beat and Bop, then we'll see what she has to say.

How have magazines and the internet (especially blogging) affected your ways of searching for design inspiration? Please share I would love to hear about it.

Have a great day!

Toodles