I always seem to have stacks of articles torn from magazines, pages ripped from catalogs, and printed recipes that wind up stashed in a drawer or piled on my nightstand. When my daughters were small, the stack grew larger as I added kids magazines to the mix – Parenting, Family Fun, Cookie, and Parents to name a few. These magazines were great resources for crafts, games, and parenting advice before the advent of mom blogs. Now my stacks also include articles that I print while scanning my favorite Internet sites and bookmarked blogs.
In an attempt to organize my growing pile, I created an “Ideas” binder, my version of a low tech precursor to Pinterest. I sorted the articles loosely by topic and made tabs for crafts, games, parenting advice, product reviews, things to do around town, travel ideas, and kid friendly recipes to try. I put the articles in clear sheet protectors in my binder, printed a cover page, and our “Ideas” binder was born. Our binder was a lifesaver on rainy weekends to combat boredom and crankiness. While today it would be quicker to just pin these articles, there is something to be said for a binder that you can hold and peruse. My daughters loved pulling the binder off the shelf and plopping on the sofa to read through it to find ideas to fill our weekends. Although we use it less frequently now that they are older, I pulled it out last week looking for an article about fun things to do in St. Augustine. I’m hoping to plan a weekend there this winter. Looking through the binder made me realize that I should probably start updating it with age appropriate articles and activities. Perhaps I’ll add a section for “tween” issues. That may renew my daughters’ interest in the binder and possibly open the door to new conversations.
