Tips to De-clutter that stack of magazines!

Do you love to read?  Enjoy catching up on entertainment, sports, fashion, news with a good magazine?  My wife and I do too!  But in a busy household with two active kids, it’s challenging to find the time to get through our magazines and the pile/clutter starts to build… 

So here’s my recommendations/guidelines on de-cluttering that stack of magazines:

1. If the magazine is older than 2-3 months, it’s OLD/past season!  Flip through it quickly and only keep the pages of articles you “really” want to read.  A few pages is more inviting and less intimidating than an entire stack of magazines.  Also, keep the reading material where you will read it – bathroom, bedside, by your favorite chair, where you eat breakfast or lunch, etc.
2. If you keep/collect magazines - like cooking, Chicago, National Geographic, etc – for future reference, store them properly and keep them organized!  When we lived in Chicago and subscribed to Chicago Magazine, we’d keep the annual edition of Best Schools, Best Doctors, Best Restaurants, Where To Fix It, etc. and found these inexpensive magazine files from Ikea to be super helpful!  The Container Store has some more expensive magazine files as well.  See the photos below for a sample of what is available at Ikea and The Container Store.
3. Repurpose magazines and cut out and use pictures from magazines for kid crafts!  We do this for our daughter and keep cut outs of food, flowers, people, furniture, etc. in a ziplock bag and she makes photo collages out of them – simple glue stick, sheet of paper or cardboard and creativity!  If you have young kids or grandkids in school, check with the teacher/school to see if they want magazine donations for their arts and crafts!
4. Recycle!  Save some trees and be green – recycle your magazines and newspapers.  If your town doesn’t offer curb side recycling with waste/garbage service, many school districts or churches have recycling drop off station.
5. Changes to on-line subscriptions!  Double bonus – go green and prevent clutter!  Switch to on-line subscriptions of your publications and read on your computer, laptop or iPad!
6. If you want to save money and go green, see if your public library has the publications you read and schedule time to go and read the magazines there.

Have any other tips or recommendations?  Please share and leave a comment!  Thanks!

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Repurpose Glass Jars!

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Glass jars can be repurposed as a vase or to help you de-clutter and organize! For example, my wife loves the bottled Starbucks Frapuccinos with some added milk to tone down the sweetness in the morning.  These bottles are a nice size to repurpose as a vase – my preschooler loved placing flowers from our yard into the bottle on our dining room table during the Spring and Summer!  Another example is how my wife uses a glass spaghetti sauce jar to store home-made jam/preserves!

Also, the glass jars from Earth’s Best baby food are great when repurposed to bring out a daily amount of Cheerios/dry snacks for your infant/toddler.  These small jars fit easily into a diaper bag!  Remember, glass is BPA free! We also use these small glass jars to de-clutter and organize craft items – great containers for beads, buttons, etc or to rinse out paint brushes when your child is doing art at home!  Additionally, we use these jars to hold the ”fancy” toothpicks and skewers for our daughter’s bento style lunch box!

Another great repurposing idea I came across is from Rikkihibbert.co.za - she has a great blog post of using glass jars as photo frames.  It’s super cool!  Be sure to check it out!

So, think about repurposing glass jars in your home – it’s useful recycling that can help you de-clutter and organize!

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Repurpose Plastic Containers!

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Our family is a member of Sam’s Club and we always get the large plastic container of organic baby spinach or spring mix salad.  After we are done with the veggies, we wash out the container and repurpose it to de-clutter and organize things in our house.  They work great to hold small toys like My Little Pet Shop, small dolls and clothes, sets of play food, etc.  The plastic containers are also helpful to organize the individual size snacks we buy rather than leave the granola bars, 100 calorie packs of cookie or chips, etc in the cardboard boxes.  You don’t know what you have left since you can’t see inside the box on your pantry shelf, but with a clear plastic ”bin” you see what you still have and know when you need to restock!

We’ve repurposed medium size plastic containers to de-clutter and organize small electric items like night lights, batteries, cords & accessories for cell phones, etc.   

The smaller plastic containers from berries or tomatoes can also be repurposed and are perfect size to de-clutter and organize crayons, colored pencils, markers and other craft type items!

Repurposing = Recycling and these clear plastic containers are great!

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Old Cell Phone = New Toy!

We all get a new cell phone every year or two, so what do you do with your old cell phones???  Repurpose them into a toy for your  children/grandchildren!  Kids these days can totally tell the difference between a “real” phone and the colorful plastic big buttoned toy phones.  So let them play with the old cell phone that you no longer use…it could help stop them from always wanting to get your “active” phone out of your hand/pocket/purse!

Repurpose Old T-shirts!

We all probably have dingy old t-shirts that are no longer white?  They aren’t worthy of being donated to Goodwill, BUT, rather than just throw them away…repurpose them into cleaning rags!  Just cut up the old t-shirts and use these 100% cotton clothes to clean your kitchen counters, windows, dust, etc!  Save on paper towels with the new use for the old t-shirts!

Repurpose Fruit & Vegetable Peels!

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Check out these 25 great ideas on repurposing fruit and vegetable peels in an on-line article from The Huffington Post!

Here’s a few from this great article:

• All types of citrus rinds, apple peels, pomegranate skins, and other fruit trimmings can simply be dried on a rack or in a food dehydrator to make homemade potpourri. Sprinkle a little “liquid potpourri” (available at craft stores) on it for more flavor if desired, or dose it with the dregs of perfume or cologne when you finish up a bottle.
•  Peaches are high in potassium and Vitamin A, which help to revitalize skin and keep it hydrated. Put a little sugar on the pulpy side of peach skins and use as a gentle face scrub.
• Lemon, lime, and other citrus rinds and pulp/juice are high in citric acid, which makes them great for polishing brass, copper, and other non-ferrous metals. Sprinkle on a little baking soda and the polishing goes even faster.
• Peanut shells burn slow ‘n’ smoky, so add a handful to the charcoal next time you’re grilling. Soak them in water ahead of time if you think of it, and let them dry a bit before you put them in the coals – that way they’ll burn even longer.

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