Reading Now: Easier Than Ever Scrapbooking

Easier-than-Ever Scrapbooking (1) Published by CK Media circa 2006.

Yawn! I know this book is a little older (Creating Keepsakes published Easier-than- Ever No. 3 recently) but seriously I doubt it was all that exciting when it was brand new and if they follow the same formula for books 2 & 3 then I’d suggest you give them all a miss unless of course you are a scrapbooking idiot.

The first couple of pages give you a ‘pantry’ of ‘essential’ supplies for making the pages in the book, they do say to use it as a guide but still there are some items there that are hardly essential.

Following on from there are three chapters;

1. From the Pantry (90 pages)
2. The Pantry plus one (30 pages)
3. The Pantry plus two or three. (21 pages)

Each chapter show cases a number of single and double page LO’s.

For each LO there is;

· a large and clear photo of the LO.

· A suggested time it will take to recreate the LO

· A list of ingredients from the Pantry (and addition(s))

· BRIEF instructions- you needn’t be a brain scientist to make these pages anyway but I feel like the instructions are a little lacking anyway.

Sometimes they also include a tip or additional project (generally a card to help use up your leftovers).

I prefer simple scrapbook pages and these ones are but there’s something about these pages that just lacks a bit of appeal… they don’t have any real ‘wow’ factor- it’s more of a ‘ho hum’ factor than anything.

Interspersed along the way is the odd page with tips and/or techniques and of course no CK publication could be without a little advertising for CK product!

So what’s it got going for it? There are a lot of pages that use only 6x4in (or slightly smaller photos) which is great for those photos where you wanted to get the good photo processing deal and just printed practically straight from the camera- or when you framed it perfectly and couldn’t crop it any smaller without amputating something.

As I said they are simple LO’s so relatively fast and cheapish to make and if you do have half a brain you can most likely give them the missing wow factor.

But if you do have half a brain you can pay half the price and get a regular magazine and get so much more value for money. So that’s my recommendation- leave Easier-than-ever on the shelf and buy yourself a couple of good magazines instead!

♥