Scrapbook Answers is not a magazine for everyone, but I love it. There aren’t as many layout ideas as in Creating Keepsakes or Memory Makers , but the interesting content they do have keeps me reading from cover to cover.
One section that I find particularly interesting is New & Reviewed . This section of the magazine rates products. How awesome that before you go out and spend your scrapbooking money on some product--you can check out how it faired against the competition. The August/September 2006 issue compared white pens—I wish it had arrived three weeks earlier since I had bought a pen that garnered 3 out of 4 stars ( I would have gotten the 4 star pen and spent forty cents more). Some of the ratings are head to head ratings while others rate one particular product. This section rates books, expensive equipment, albums, rub-ons—the gamut. Some new products are merely highlighted—paper and stickers—since those items are highly subjective.
Scrapbook Answers has a lot of how-to information, from hand lettering with a dip pen to explaining different camera features to help you take better photos. The how-to information varies from hands-on art (several different ways to use watercolors) to computer (how to fill in titles using Adobe Photoshop Elements ).
The magazine has a Makeovers column where readers send in layouts, that for whatever reason, displeased them. These layouts are then redone by the Scrapbook Answers designers. I love reading the What We Did part after each makeover—it really nails home how designers look at photo elements and other details to produce the effects they get on their layouts.
A few articles miss the mark for me—one on how stickers and rub-ons are designed and produced comes to mind. That aside, articles that I do like more than make up for some of the weaker areas for me. I’m really not interested that it takes 15 people and 6 to 25 weeks to create a new rub-on. I want to know if they are high quality.
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Scrapbook Answers produces 9 issues a year each one packaged with a CD. The current per issue price is $7.99—but when I like a magazine I subscribe. A one-year subscription is $24.95. And yes, I do now have a subscription to Scrapbook Answers.
About that CD. The CD (which they call the Answers Disc ) will work on either a PC or a Mac. Some elements on the disc will work with only one type, but most work on both. I am a font fanatic—I love checking out all the cool new fonts on each disc. The disc is set up, so you can check out each font and download the ones you want. I WANT THEM ALL--because as I said, I’m a font hound. I could not find a way to download them as a group—so it gets a bit tedious doing it one by one. After all, I am a Mac user, so I’m not used to tedious.
The discs also contain printable images—full-color, high-resolution photos. You can print these out 12 x 12, or crop and/or alter them to fit your needs. On a recent disc, photos included gumballs, erasers, alphabet fridge magnets, and more. Digital kit samples are also on the disc.
Each disc has five how-to videos. Some of these interest me, some of them don’t. A gallery highlighting layouts shown in the magazine and resources (such as templates for projects) are also on the disc.
For me, the best things on the discs are the printable papers and photos, FONTS, and a few of the how-to videos. I find the magazine and CD worth the price. At least take the time to check it out for yourself.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DISC
600Mhz or faster processor, 256MB memory, 100MB free storage space, 16X CD-ROM drive, Windows 98/ME/2000/XP or Macintosh OS X operating system, Acrobat Reader 5 or higher, QuickTime 6 or higher.