A solid, affordable scrapbooking magazine

I am relatively new to scrapbooking. After muddling along for a year or so, I decided I needed some professional inspiration. Buying a few magazines seemed like a great idea -- until I saw the price. How can a magazine cost $10 or more?

In despair I turned to E-bay, where I was able to buy a whole (prior) year worth of Simple Scrapbooks for a fraction of the cover price. Since then, I have purchased the magazines currently in print and become a subscriber.

I find most scrapbook magazines serve the same purpose -- ideas. And while all of them have too many ads (Simple Scrapbooks is no exception), sometimes the ads are as useful as the articles.

The cover price is $4.99; the subscription rate is $14.97 for 6 issues. It is published bi-monthly. The magazine is divided into sections such as Use, Learn, Do and Share. The magazine focuses heavily on ideas that are easy, fast and practical. There are also typically articles that focus on dealing with common problems (in the current issue, May/June 1006, there is an article about what to do when something happened to your photos (or when you didn't get any to commemorate an event you'd like to scrapbook).

While this magazine may not be technical enough to suit a very advanced scrapper, for anyone who is just starting out or who likes to use magazines for inspiration, I would recommend Simple Scrapbooks. Each magazine contains a lot of layouts to inspire you, and articles that are pertinent to the needs of the hobby scrapbooker.