I’ve written before about my inspiration binders and inspiration boards, and the resulting outfits such projects inspired. But now that you’re unemployed (see all unemployment projects here!) you have time to go crazy with your inspiration binders and achieve something else equally important — getting rid of all of those magazines I know you’ve been saving.

I had stacks of Print, Oprah, Real Simple, Nylon, Teen Vogue, Good, and ReadyMade (between Oprah & Teen Vogue, try to guess my age!) piling up in my shelves and taking over my life. I am a packrat, so I couldn’t just throw them away.

I made multiple binders with the following categories: Fashion (with tabs for: hair, makeup, professional clothes, socks, and awesome outfits); Recipes (real food, desserts); Crafty Inspiration (Cool Page Layouts, DIY, and Home).

Here are some excerpts from my fashion binder:

Here are some Tips & Tricks for your binder making:

• In my fashion binder, I chose to cutout my fashion inspirations and mix them together on blank white paper under clear sleeves, but because most of the recipes I found took up entire pages, I just hole punched them and put them directly in the binder (with a blank sleeve at the front so I can take one to the kitchen and not ruin it).
• For my fashion binder, I only put in items I could feasibly make with my own wardrobe, this way the binder would be really useful when getting dressed (its purpose!).
• But I was too sad to leave some awesome fashions in the recycling bin, so I labeled one clear sleeve “Love Em” for outfits I loved but couldn’t see making with what I already owned.
• I also made an “Archives” sleeve to stuff in things that started to get old. This way, I can cycle through inspirations as my fancy strikes.
• I actually use my binders for reference! And you should too! Sometimes, I take out something cool and put it on my inspiration board (ie bulletin board hanging in my room reserved for inspiring things).
• If I like something on both sides of a page, I don’t use a white background in my sleeve. If something takes up too much space, but I think I might like to see the whole thing or if there is more info I might want to reference, I fold it instead of cutting it out. Sometimes I’ll tape extra info about a product onto the back of the picture if I think I’ll want to reference it later.
• Yes, you can probably do this project while watching reruns of everything you already watched reruns of on Hulu.

Finally, a crafty reader named Ann sent me the funniest email and an awesome project. While you’re going through your magazines, cut out little squares of solid colors and use them to make or decorate something you need, like a CD rack. I’ll give you her instructions:

“After many rounds of somewhat lame cross-stitch projects, I needed something different to do, so I decided to attack my mysterious Vogue subscription (mysterious because I have no idea why they’re being sent to me because, obviously, I can’t afford anything advertised there) collection. I needed a storage solution for my cds and whatnots, but since I couldn’t find a cool box that i liked from target, I decided to grab my scissors, magazines, and glue and get to gettin.”

“First, I cut down my Quaker Oats jumbo box to about 5″ high. Then I started ripping out pages from my magazine, focusing on those pages that were mainly of one color, or of fun pattern (stripes, plaids, and flowers). Then I started cutting out 2.5″ squares from those sheets of paper. THEN I folded in the four corners, glued, flipped over, folded in the four corners again and glued, to make mini squares. THEN I sorted them into ROYGBIV order, then glued them onto the box. I cheated a bit on the long sides, but I like the finished product well enough.”

With both of these projects in hand, you should be busy for at least two days!

Yasmine just put up the newest issue of Parasol Magazine. I liked #1 but with #2… I am really in love. Honestly. THERE ARE CUPCAKES ON THE COVER (see picture below).

Consider this. It is 5:30 am and I am writing a post on this even though I have a combination of a headache & insomnia & the magazine was issued less than two hours ago.

It’s up in both an online Issuu version and a downloadable pdf. Download the pdf, yo. Above are some of the highlights, a little taster-sample so you will think, my god!!!!!!!, I need one of these myself! You WILL need one — it will inspire you to be creative, eat cupcakes, wear vintage jewelry, cute shoes, and paint pictures with rainbows. Bestest of all, it’s so ridiculously free there is no reason not to get it!

Happy Friday! I will be gone to good ol’ North Carolina next week, but perhaps Tricia & Lorraine will keep you company while I’m away! Here is just a little-something before I depart : ).

Remember that post where I RAVED about the UK-based magazine Anorak (The Happy Magazine for Kids)? WELL, I STILL LOVE IT. And I have a subscription (yes, I am a very big kid).

It is almost weird, though, it is sort of like they made the magazine just for me. It always contains bright colors and is beautifully designed. The last issue was ALL about chocolate, my favorite food. And the current issue, I kid you not!, is about WORDS, which I am obsessed with. That sounds very general, I know, but it’s not! I’m a writer, and I actually read the “Word of the Day” from dictionary.com and write down the words!

Anyway, so here is just a small excerpt from this week’s issue with my answers filled-in!

Feel free to answer any or all of the questions in the comment section! & check-out Anorak because they make me smileeee.

1. What’s your favorite word? Deipnosophist. That is, someone who is skilled at table talk. That was the word of the day on Thanksgiving two years ago. And yes, it is very obscure.
2. What’s the cheesiest word? Cheese. I really think it’s a cheesy word, and not even in a corny or ironic way. I hate when people say things like, “Oh look at all that cheese” when they are watching something like Full House.
3. What’s the funniest word? Spoonerism. This was the Word of the Day on Monday. It is “a verbal error in which a speaker accidentally transposes the initial sounds or letters of two or more words, often to humorous effect.” For example, if you said “sew you to your sheet” instead of “show you to your seat.” It’s called a “spoonerism” because some Reverend Spooner apparently did this all of the time.
4. What’s the nicest word someone ever used to describe you? I like when people call me creative. Or unique. And they really mean it.
5. What’s the word you repeat the most? Probably “the” or “a” or even “cool” but apparently I also have been known to say “random” a lot. As in, “that is so random” or “so the other day I was randomly watching this mock-Billy May’s YouTube video.”
6. What’s the word you wish you had invented? Schadenfreude. This is an awesome word which means “to feel pleasure at another person’s pain or misery.” You know you’ve felt it.

S&D “Media Kit”

Yesterday I was laid off of my full-time job of about one and a half years. This means: free time, no money. I figured I’d write a post to mark the occasion.

I will accept the following at maria@stickersanddonuts.com: job tips, presents, money, condolences.

1. Good Magazine. This graphically designed wonder is focused on issues important to moving our world forward. And, you can get it for as little as ONE DOLLAR. No matter how much you spend, all proceeds go to charity. You don’t even need to prove you’re unemployed!
2. French Press ($13, Ikea). If you can no longer drink office coffee or afford the Starbucks-splurge, then a French Press might be the cheapest and easiest way to get your drug-fix — especially because you can use it to make milk FOAM (latte, perhaps?). (REALLY, just pour the milk in and pump it up and down. If you’re using skim milk, it should be cold or it doesn’t foam as well.)
3. The Office (or any TV series). A good television series or two can keep you occupied for weeks! The Office is a good choice because you don’t HAVE to go to an office everyday. Ways you can watch The Office for cheap? New episodes are free online, Netflix them, buy ‘em cheap at half.com, or check the library.
4. Get some good, inexpensive wine, and drink yourself into oblivion. I mean. Don’t do that! You’re not UNEMPLOYED; you’re FREE. Drink yourself silly with happiness?
5. Get Crafty. Use ReadyMade’s free Project Archive to get organized or make things. Since you have lots of time, but hardly any money, you can make your family some fun holiday gifts, like weirdly shaped soaps. You don’t have a job. They’ll forgive you.
6. Go to the library. As noted in #3, you can find good stuff at the library. You can catch up on the one million books you’ve been meaning to read. To get closer to your own laid-off / fired / unemployed pain, try Then We Came to the End, about an advertising agency going through a business downturn. Really funny!

Don’t worry, Tricia will be back next week with many more awesome poster artists!

ANORAK: The Happy Magazine for Kids is a UK-based children’s magazine of illustrated and graphical wonder (think: Highlights: The Next Generation)! They recently sent me a copy, which I am currently swooning over despite my official status as an adult (who may or may not be able to rent cars).

The magazine doesn’t seem to orient itself towards one particular age group (the magazine suggests it’s for kids 5-10). For younger kids, there are beautiful pages of artwork, bright colors, drawing prompts, and simple games. For slightly older kids, there are fun stories and easy-to-read informational articles.

There is also a great eight page section called “good stuff” which references new and fun events, games, & products, and book reviews by kids 5-10.

For adults like me, there is lots and lots of pretty.

You can also check-out their web-site online, which has a section of free, fun goodies including doodle-y desktop wallpapers and icons.

The magazine is about 80 full-color pages on high-quality non-gloss paper. It comes four times a year, but is a bit expensive for a subscription for we non-UK folk (If you want, you can pretend you are getting little books in the mail and the cost won’t seem so high! Also, you AND your child are going to love it!). You can purchase single issues at the following US locations: (more…)