Making a Magazine Holder

Calv from the forum has put together this tutorial to make a magazine holder from a ring binder, check out from his blog, for more great ideas and inspiration.

It is modelled on the type of holders that you can buy from magazine suppliers.

Firstly, you need a ring binder, you can choose one that you already like the design or you can cover one at the end, with papers of your choice.

Removing the 'ring binder bit'
Now we want to get rid of the metal ring contraption in the middle.

This is the hardest part of the project.  It is only held in with two eyelets, but they are tough little fellas, so I got some pliers and sort of pinched the edge of the eyelets together until you could shove it back through the hole in the binder.


 

Take it off back and front, eyelets too. You should be left with holes like this.

These can be easily covered up with a strip of card/paper, you won't see this once you have filled it with magazines.




 



The outside bit gets covered up the same, however you can fancy this up a bit more, even write a label so you can see what is stored inside.

You may even want to have a folder for each brand of magazine, in which case you could be ultra organisational and include the name of the magazine.  Using this as your template, cut out another piece of card and cover with patterned paper. You may wish to ink/chalk around the edges. 

Now to work on what holds the magazines in the binder. Using a Crop-A-Dile (or some other eyelet setting equipment, check out this page for more information), punch a hole at either end of the binder.  Ensure you leave a few millimetres so you can slide a magazine in.  Secure the eyelet, nice side on the outside of the binder.....looks prettier that way!



Now you want a few lengths of ribbon, thin ribbon is fine. Make sure they are a couple of inches longer than the binder as you will need the extra length for tying a knot.  Tie your first ribbon at one end, just tie any old secure knot, pull it tight...but not overly tight that you can't fit a mag under it.....then tie it off at the other end.  

You should now have this....

You could use other cord or maybe raffia - something that will take the weight of a magazine.

You will need a separate ribbon for each magazine, so just add them all either at the start when you make the binder, or add then as you buy each magazine. Here I'll just do two for the tutorial.

As you can see, if you do them singularly, you end up with a knot for each ribbon. Instead, you may want to try holding a few together, threading them through the eyelet and tying them off in one knot.  This is to save taking up too much space around the eyelet.

I've just checked and I can fit ten bits of thin ribbon through an eyelet.  If you find this tricky, there is nothing to stop you adding a couple another couple of eyelets either side of this one.

 

Now open your magazine to the centre pages, and slide it under the ribbon.  Close the first magazine, and you can see below that you have the next ribbon waiting to take the next mag.

 
 


Insert your next magazine exactly as you did the first.....

Hey presto.....here you have a quick, easy and affordable way of keeping your magazines safe and in good condition.



 © Crafts by Carolyn December 2008