Cardmaker Magazine Review

Greeting cards are a popular item in my household. Everyone seems to like giving and receiving cards and my significant other has even contemplated starting her own business involving the creation and printing of customized cards. One magazine that covers the subject of greeting card construction and design is Cardmaker, a publication written for the creative, sentimental type.

Magazine Commentary:
 
Cardmaker is one of the few magazines of its kind and it's one I have been thumbing through since I first learned about it last year. Greeting cards are popular in my household and hand- made greeting cards are frequently found on the output tray of my home printer. It was only a matter of time until we discovered Cardmaker magazine and added it to the dozens of other publications that arrive in our mailbox each month.

Cardmaker is all about making cards and it is one of the few magazines that remains almost 100% committed to its cause. With other publications, there are usually at least a couple other articles that talk about a subject different (or slightly different) from the main topic. But Cardmaker is true to the end. Every article in this magazine talks about making cards. The article might cover embroidery, sayings, colors, printing, or something else. But everything you read in this magazine is about making cards and in this respect, Cardmaker delivers what you expect plus a little bit more.

One might wonder how a magazine can devote all of its pages to one narrow subject but Cardmaker has no trouble accomplishing this. How?- because it offers so many creative ways to design a card. Once the creative floodgates are open, there is virtually no limit to the different ways a card can be made. Cardmaker Magazine talks about the usual things, like catchy, sentimental sayings and the use of colorful objects to get the recipient's attention. But it also talks about other things too, like adding a music chip, adding a row of stitching with yarn, and designing cards in unique shapes rather than constantly relying on the basic rectangular card that you find in stores. Just when I think there is nothing else that could be done to a card, Cardmaker surprises me with a different creative touch.

Because Cardmaker covers so many different aspects of card making, it is one of the more reliable and consistent magazines on the market. But this reliability also makes Cardmaker a tad repetitive. Even within the same issue, it is common to find the same, identical theme talked about more than once. Those who love to make cards won't mind this one bit but I know that some readers will grow tired of reading the same things over and over again throughout the year. For this reason, I think it would be better if Cardmaker offered a little more flexibility in its reading. Maybe a news story relating to the card business or an article about saving paper by sending e-cards would make the magazine less monotonous. Purists will likely love the magazine just the way it is, but I would like to see a few changes made to broaden the reading material.

Bottom Line:

Overall, Cardmaker is still a very nice little magazine for those who enjoy the craft of card making and the creativity that goes into it. It's a magazine 100 percent dedicated to cards and while this does mean the magazine can get a little repetitive, it also means the magazine can be counted on for complete coverage of its main subject with practically no deviation from one issue to the next.