Magazines are great, especially when you get them for free! Sometimes, though, there is too much of a good thing.
Too many magazines can quickly overrun any home. If you’re anything like me, though, you might find it difficult to just toss them in the trash or recycle bin when you’re done with them. However, there comes a time when you’ll need to get rid of old magazines.
Here are a few ideas for what to do with old magazines. Besides just tossing them, of course!
1. Stock Waiting Rooms
If you’ve ever sat in a waiting room and couldn’t find anything good to read, you might consider donating your old magazines to businesses with waiting rooms. Some possible drop offs might include doctors offices, hospitals, insurance companies, and banks. You can certainly drop off a few when you have business at one of these locations, but you may want to call ahead if you want to drop off several magazines. You should also remove your address labels from magazines that came to you from a subscription.
2. Send Them to School
School art teachers are often responsible for purchasing their own art supplies. Because of this, they sometimes struggle to keep their art supplies stocked. Some art teachers use old magazines in crafts during class, such as collages. Send a note to school with your child asking if you can donate old magazines or call the school and ask. If you have educational magazines, your child’s class may also get some use out of them.
3. Take Them to the Library
Most libraries accept donations of both new and old magazines. They are often left out on tables for library patrons to browse through. Old magazines are also usually sold during library sales for a few cents.
4. Make Beads
If you’re looking for a fun craft to do with your kids, try making beads from the pages of old magazines. Start by cutting a very thin triangle from a colorful glossy page. The base of the triangle will end up being the length of the bead. Wrap the wider end of the triangle tightly around a toothpick. When you’ve wrapped almost all of the paper strip around the toothpick, glue the pointy end of the triangle down, and let it dry. You can add a coat of clear nail polish or varnish, but keep in mind that these are still paper beads and they are not waterproof.
5. Decoupage Something
If you find a great picture in a magazine, why not save it for a decoupage project? Trim around the edges of the picture and glue it to a flat surface, like the top of a wooden trinket box. Seal it with some polyurethane to protect the picture. You can also decoupage items like glass plates and lamp shades.
6. Weave a Basket
While searching around for ideas for what to do with old magazines, I came across this basket tutorial. It seems like a pretty neat way to recycle old magazines and get some lieel catchall trinket baskets at the same time.
7. Use Them as a Table
If you can’t bear to part with a stack of your old magazines, use them as a low table. Just stack several magazines on top of each other and place them against the wall with the spines facing out. This may not be the sturdiest table, but it should work to hold a lamp or vase of flowers.
8. Make a Seat
I saw a couple great ideas for using old magazines to make stools, here and here. The first magazine stool should be easy enough, as it looks like it’s not much more than a high stack of magazines topped with a pillow secured to a wooden base with a couple of belts. The second one looks like it might be a bit trickier to pull off, but definitely doable. You would probably have to glue the magazines together for both projects, though.
