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The Ideal Way To Store Your Magazines

Finally, a systematic way to keep magazines together yet separate in an attractive {and unobtrusive} arrangement.

 

THE CREATIVE SOLUTION | When you have large numbers of magazines, quick reference is not always easy. The standard way to keep periodicals organized is to store them in magazine file boxes, but these containers, which are often made of flimsy cardboard, hold only a minimal number of copies. As your magazine collection grows, so does your need for file boxes, which can end up looking like an unattractive, mashed-up mess when you can’t find more to match the style you started out with.

Faced with this very problem awhile back, I came up with a flexible yet consistent-looking way to sort and store my favourite mags. Read more

Party Planning Made Easy: Try A Work-Back Schedule

So much to do. So little time. Treat Christmas like a business and use a work-back schedule—you could find the season more enjoyable.

SAVE ON STRESS | Time to Hall out ye-old workback schedule If you’re like me, one month from now, December 12 to be exact, you will start to panic and pour on the holiday steam. You’ll shop madly, bake badly, decorate like a maniac and begin, finally, to think about the design for your custom Christmas card, kicking yourself as you do every year for not having jumped on it earlier. So much to be done in so little time and all of it accomplished in the evenings.

Christmas will never be as carefree for adults as it is for kids—we have too much work to do behind the scenes—but this year I’m going corporate and using a simplified version of a “work-back schedule” to get everything done in an unhurried, orderly and more enjoyable manner. Read more

Large Black Chalkboard - C. Phaisalakani

With Chalkboards, Bigger Is Almost Always Better

When it comes to having a blackboard in your life, it’s best to go big or go home.

Large Black Chalkboard - C. Phaisalakani

 

MONEY WELL SPENT | One of the best things we did the first time we renovated our house, when my now teenage son was small, was to put a gigantic black chalkboard on one wall in our dining area. We had to order it from a company in Ontario that supplies visual presentation products to schools because we couldn’t find anything locally that was the four-by-eight-foot size we wanted. The board was surprisingly inexpensive, but crating and shipping it nearly doubled the cost. And the cost doubled again when we ditched the anodized aluminum trim kit that can be purchased with the unit in favour of a custom-fitted natural wood picture frame we thought would look better with our hardwood floors and furniture. In the end, I think we paid around $800 for the whole thing, which isn’t dirt cheap but certainly less expensive than a framed artwork of comparable size. Read more