If you, like me, amass a collection of inspiration outside of your harddrive you may be interested in my method of keeping those magazine pages, photo stories, and drawings more organized.

You’ll Need:

• 3-ring Binder (I use a 3-inch one for more space and durability)
• 3-ring Sheet Protectors
• Sticker Labels or Index Dividers
• Magazines
• Metal Ruler
• Olfa Knife or Scissors
• Cutting Mat (if you decide to go the Olfa Knife route)
•  Optional: Paint Thinner

Start by tearing out whichever sheets you want to keep from the magazine.  Something I learned from putting together contest entries at my W Magazine internship: a few drips of paint thinner in the spine of the mag will loosen the adhesive used to bind it, the pages will come out super clean and it will dry perfectly/without any ripples.

If the pages are too big for an 8.5 x 11 sheet protector (W Magazine and Nylon are both too big!) use the metal ruler and olfa knife to make nice, clean edges (or you can use a pair of scissors).

I sort all of my pages into these categories before putting them into the sheet protectors:

• Ads
• Art
• Beauty
• Clothes/Accessories
• Covers
• Design
• Interiors
•  ”It Girls” – Models, Celebrities, Socialites, Designers I like
• Stuff to DIY
• Textual Content

After they are all in protectors, and still kept in their different categories I put them into the 3-ring binder.  I used to use index dividers:

But I found that they dont stick out past the sheet protectors.  To solve this I made DIY tabs on the sheet protectors themselves using 2 sticker labels stuck together:

(I use this same method to tab important notes in my Moleskine that I want to find again later)

It was quite a task to take all the stuff I had collected in boxes and put them into one binder but I’m glad I did.   Now it’s a lot easier to find what I’m looking for, it’s easy for other people to look through, and everything stays neat.

How do you keep your inspiration together?

Related posts:

1. Questions Answered: What to Major in if You Want to Work for Magazines
2. Inspiration Folder
3. Inspiration Folder: Underpinnings
4. Inspiration Folder: Tattoos!
5. Inspiration Folder: Skulls