It all started with the Bloggy Giveaways…

One blogger was giving away copies of Leisure Arts magazine she had found in a thrift store. I loved that magazine back when it was in print — it was one of my all time favorite craft magazines. I didn’t enter the contest, though, because I thought I had several issues of it.

That prompted me to look at my “stash” of old craft magazines, and to my dismay, I only found five issues of Leisure Arts. I may have others in a box somewhere.

But I do have at least six magazine storage boxes of craft magazines, not to mention a couple of stacks tucked away in drawers. I had stopped adding to them because I had so many, but I had kept them for years thinking they were too nice to dissemble. However, they are taking up valuable space. My bookshelves are overrun, some shelves with double rows of books, and my craft storage area is at a premium.

So I decided the time had come. I needed to go through my craft magazines, pull out what I thought I might realistically do some day, and toss the rest.

Though I was sad about it at first, the more I sorted through them, the more comfortable I was with my decision. The first stack I picked up was from the 80s. Some of the projects were woefully outdated (remember “country” white ducks and geese with blue neckerchiefs?), some of the crafts themselves not something I would ever take up (remember quilling?) A lot of the pages were filled with old ads, old columns about then-new books and popular trends, etc. I might still keep a couple just to remember them by if there are any with a lot of classic or favorite projects.

In the craft world, as in other areas, “what goes around comes around.” It’s funny how different crafts come and go through the years with little differences. So many people do beaded necklaces now, and I thought that was a relatively new thing, but I found some in those 80s magazines that look like they could have been made today.

This is the top level of the cabinet where I keep craft supplies and ladies’ ministry stuff.

Looks awful, doesn’t it? And I have even cleaned out a few things already. But I have a ways to go. This tends to be where I “stuff” things in this room when I am doing a quick clean-up of tabletops and work spaces. There is a shoe box full of photos as well as another stack that I need to work on some time…

I’ve been going through the magazines and marking things of interest in the evenings when we’re watching TV or the guys are all on their various electronic devices. My computer is a desktop in the hodgepodge room sunroom, so if everyone else is in the living room with their laptops or PDAs or whatever, sometimes I’ll go in there and read or go through recipe magazines, or, now, old craft magazines. (Family togetherness in the new millennium! LOL!) I don’t pull out the pages right then because the patterns are usually in the middle of the magazine on a large sheet that needs to be pulled out of the staples. The sheet is printed on front and back, and I would need to either cut out or photocopy the ones I want. So I am doing that in a separate step, and that will give me another opportunity to weed out even further the projects I really want to keep.

Probably most of what I have are Crafts Magazine, which is still in print. I do still look at it occasionally, especially around Valentine’s Day and the spring issues. But I have developed a more discerning eye about what to keep: I have so many craft projects stacked up already I am trying to be careful about adding to them.

Besides Leisure Arts, another favorite was Country Handcrafts.

I wish this was still in print, too. This makes me wish I knew how to knit!

I am finding that Leisure Arts’ projects are pretty classic.

If we ever have a little girl in the house…

Sigh! Love that!

Remember soft sculpture? I never did it, but I remember when you could see little piggies in craft magazines everywhere.

No, I’m not keeping this one! 🙂

I’ve noticed that there don’t seem to be many general craft magazines any more besides Crafts. They seem to be broken up into specialty ones dealing with individual crafts like scrapbooking, quilting, cross stitch, painting, etc.

It’s been inspiring to go back through these. And I feel good that I am working on getting this area organized and pared down.