Little Black Book

Hello my name is Kelly and I am a magazine clipping junkie.   Well, as do many things for me it all started for me with Martha Stewart….

I used to regularly subscribe to Martha Stewart Living (as well House Beautiful, Elle Décor, House & Garden, the now defunct Domino, Boston Home, InStyle, etc, etc…you get the idea) and by this ever growing/changing list I’m sure you can see why I couldn’t keep up with my rapidly growing magazine library but really didn’t want to discard so many fabulous decorative ideas and projects plans I needed for future “rainy days”.   The problem really came to a head when I was packing to move south and I was faced with not only not wanting to tote this ever growing stack for the next foreseeable future but more importantly how was I ever going to keep track of what issue that perfect Christmas ball wreath project or Sara Blakely’s divine living room was in.  After just a couple of years it had already become unmanageable.

So I made an executive decision – I went through the stack, pulled out just the articles, pictures & recipes that I was just positive I would use…someday. 

This really pared the stack down but then I had to decide how I was going to organize them for quick access:  file folder, expandable folder, folder pockets, stack, binder or drawer?  I tried several options but just never really got my hands around all of the clippings I had collected.  To make it more difficult I had torn things out in all different sizes and shapes.  Some of the pages I had torn out had several ideas on them not all of which was I interested in (ditto the back pages).

A while back I started “the binder” – it was not well organized and still in scraps that I had kept and hole-punched so they would fit in the binder but at least everything was in one spot.  Perusing to find ideas really had not become any easier – just more compact.

This messy collection continued to grow until last week when I finally just had enough and sat down to make a plan to get myself organized.  This is the result of that plan:

I color copied all of my scraps so not only are they all on the same size paper but this gave me the option to edit out the extraneous ideas that had only been saved in my idea book because they happened to be on the back of the page of some fascinating article on the history of Vaseline glass or how to make roman shades. There are no curled edges or torn corners.  So much more pleasant to peruse….and definitely useful.  I have been able to pull from my little black book for inspiration ideas for projects I am currently working on in my house.

I also recently discovered Pinterest - this is an online version of my little black book and is such a cool site.  If you haven’t checked out Pinterest let me just tell you - you need to!  This is an “invitation” only site but feel free to leave me a message with your email and I’m happy to pass the invite along.  The really beautiful thing about Pinterest is not only can you keep track of your design or project ideas (and how to execute them) but you suddenly have access to literally thousands of other folks inspirational ideas that you can repin to your boards.

Love, love, love this site to keep track of my new inspiration ideas but I can’t quite part with my little black book filled with perfection.  Luckily I definitely think there is room for both in my life!