Somerset Memories is a wonderful magazine which emphasizes the more artistic and innovative end of scrapbooking and paper craft, with a lot of it being altered and mixed media art. It will draw you in from the first page and keep you completely enthralled with the artwork until the end.

Somerset Memories has several departments such as Digital Workshop, which explains “Creating with Technology”. The February/March issue, for example, explains how to scan a picture and extract an image from it. There is also a feature in every issue called “The Virtual Gallery” which is a compilation of reader’s virtual scrapbook page submissions. There are instructions in the back of the magazine how to achieve the looks in the pictures. Don’t let this fool you though; Somerset Memories is not all about the virtual and digital end of scrapbooking.

A wonderful article in this issue is “My Rockstar Life” by Laura McCollough. She made a Hopes and Dreams Journal which any teenage girl would simply fall in love with. Done in today’s popular styles and colors of crème, black, red, and gold, it is an edgy, imaginative album. Made with Miley Cyrus in mind and with some input from her daughters she has made a scrap book worthy of a star. She is working on getting it to Miley, and I hope she does. I am sure it will be appreciated.

"Details" is a department which gives wonderful examples of different types of embellishments and ways to enhance your scrap book pages and cards. Scrapbooking on a Dime is another department which gives several different ways you can save money in your endeavors. There are product and book reviews, as well as reader’s submissions.

The reader’s submissions show the vast difference in styles and techniques that are used from person to person, and each individual’s unique style. Submissions are shown from throughout the world and for all different situations and emotions. With everything from rubber stamping to altered books in the mix, you are sure to be amazed and inspired.

There does not seem to be an overabundance of advertising, which makes the magazine more worth the money to me, as I do not feel I am paying to read ads, which is the problem I have with magazines more and more often.

Overall it is a publication which I feel is well worth the money, and gives a very wide range of ideas and inspiration. Thumbing through it in the store I could appreciate the pictures, but bringing it home and reading it made me appreciate all the wonderful ideas and how-tos that are shared from all over the world.