Gather ideas for your articles. This will help you not only focus your attention, but also will tell you what kinds of extra information you need to add to the articles, like photos or illustrations. When you're designing and printing a magazine at home on a budget, you can find these extra items inexpensively by buying clip art CDs.
Consider using a user-friendly and free software program to lay out your magazine like Open Office. It has a layout program similar to Microsoft Publisher. It provides you with templates to get you started, making the process of designing your magazine simpler (see Resources for download information and program tutorials).
Create a file folder on your computer in which you'll store your magazine-related files. These files should include articles and pictures. You'll find it easier to keep track of this information if you make sub-folders inside the main folder; break the sub-folders up into issues---for example, February, March, April issues. To create the file folder, right-click on your desktop and go to "New." Select the folder option. A new folder will appear on your desktop, which you can label with the name of your project. To make sub-folders, follow the same process, but inside of the main folder.
Open up your layout program and select a document format that best fits your magazine's format. It's easiest to start with a template and add special features to it. Name your file and save it in your magazine file folder.
Find photos and illustrations on your clip art CDs that fit the stories you plan on writing for your magazine. Follow the instructions that come with the CDs for how to extract the images and save them in your file folder.
Write the articles for your magazine in Open Office's word processing program and save them in the appropriate file folder. Once they're saved in hard document format, copy and paste them into the appropriate spot in your document. This is usually done by clicking on the text that's already in the document template. This highlights it black. Click on the highlighted area and paste it directly into the document.
Import your photos and clip art into the document. To do this go to "Insert > Picture > From File" Choose the graphic that you want to place in your magazine and add it to your document.
Repeat the layout process (adding photos and stories) until you finish your magazine. Save the final document in your magazine file folder.
Print out the number of copies you need. To print out, go to "File > "Print" and select your printer. Bind your magazine. Staples will probably be the easiest and least expensive option.