Oh I agree! even country living has lost its allure for me,there are only so many times they can rehash the same old themes,as a long time Vogue fanatic I am even tiring of that! way to many adverts for way too much stuff I will never afford! perhaps friday should be library day instead? xx

I know what you mean. I miss them too. But 'Romantic Homes' and 'Romantic Country' still make my heart skip a beat when I find them in my mail box. Do you have them available where you live? I have noticed too that my book collection has been growing lately.
~Debra

I completely understand where you're coming from but I often go through fickle phases of magazine love and disappointment.

I subscribe to Romantic Homes & Romantic Country from the US and always buy Martha Living but even that hasn't quite hit the spot lately like it used to (although her Halloween special did perk me up a little!).

One magazine I do love is YOU magazine free with the Sunday Mail. I don't often read it on the day often saving it for the miserable Monday morning train journey!

Victoria xx

Oh it's Martha's Living ... not every issue is WOW, but when it is, I'm pouring over those pages obsessively.

I've actually taken to reading back issues of favorite magazines, to save money. It's often like reading something new if I haven't seen it for a year...!

Oh do I hear you! I have become so disgusted with my magazines and have not renewed most of them. I was getting real tired of drowning in ads and subscription cards in every other page and when the industry standard changed most of the mags to just 6 times a year it was the final straw! :)

Ideal Home's Complete Guide to Christmas is my drug of choice for tonight (an unusually solo night for me) but that's only annual, and I don't know how different from last year's it will be. Monthly, I mourn the demise of Mary Engelbreit, but I like Country Homes & interiors and Country Living. I love the idea of re-reading past isues. Very green.

I used to read so many magazines and bought them every month (Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Country Living, Eve, Company...)

Now I still buy Country Living (good inspiration pictures for work) but I don't buy any others.

I too love the YOU magazine though I never really buy it anymore, just steal it off my step dad when I am home, plus my friend is a press officer so gets loads of free ones I take occasionally ;)

I would love to buy and read more but they are so expensive now and I find the fashion mags I used to love don't mean so much to me now!

I may try a new one a month to see in the next few months.

I'm with you on this!
alot of the magazines have got very 'samey'. Even Martha is not as great as it used to be!
I still buy it though :) ha ha


Lots of Love

Kelly xxxx

I love Country Kitchen magazine for good old fashioned home cooking recipes and sensible seasonal stuff. If you can cope with a little Danish, have a look at Isabellas (a Scandinavian Martha...) you can check it out at www.isabellas.dk! Other than that I too recommend vintage back issues from ebay. As to why mags instead of blogs...who wants to balance a laptop over a steamy bubble bath!!! ;)

Presently I'm in love with Somerset Life. It's pricey for a mag, but worth it.

I'm still mourning Home Companion.

I think another reason a lot of people feel lukewarm towards magazines lately is a shift in consciousness to less consumerism. With everything that's going on, both globally and personally, it feels kid of incongruous to have luxury "necessities" dangled in front of us. We're also waking up to the reality of how UNREAL the images in these magazines can be- styled interiors, airbrushed models, plastic food- and how they can make us feel like we are never ENOUGH.
I still miss Domino. :)

It'd have to be 'Victoria', but I do enjoy 'Romantic Homes' when it's more shabby and not so prissy-looking. :) From issue to issue, you never know!

Thanks for asking us. Fun to see who drools over what.

I am only paying for Victoria magazine right now...I've been signing up for many free magazines lately, and enjoy those, too (Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living).

The computer doesn't compare to a magazine...I hope that when the magazine "mood" strikes me again, that I will still have many to choose from! ;)

It is Real Simple for me Alison! Can't wait until the issue arrives from the gold ol USA to my local Borders where I then have to pay the over inflated price of $17 per copy. But I do Lurve it!
Fleur

Marie Claire Idees is the only one that excites me anymore. Four times a year, sadly, is all. And in French.

Why don't you give up mags and read a book? Learn to knit fab tea cozies or crochet a blanket for your little one?

I subscribe to Country Living too and yes, I don't find myself waiting quite so excitedly for that satisfying thump on the doormat. I used to save them but then decided that years of old magazines stock piled in the spare room was reminiscent of one of my least favourite aunts. Now I keep 12 issues worth at a time. Each time a new one comes, after I have absorbed it cover to cover, I go through the year old one and take out any bits I must keep and recycle the rest of it.

I agree that these magazines have somehow lost something! When you read the same style of mags for a while, you realise they keep re-vamping the same articles!!
I still love Martha Stewart though!!

I do love your blog - it's so pretty!!!

xxxx

I love Victoria, although it's not like the Victoria of old. Thank goodness I kept all of those issues so I can revisit them. I miss Home Companion and the old Victoria most of all.

I have to say I am desperately addicted to Victoria (the old issues are my collecting obsession) and I subscribe to the new ones. Mary Engelbreits is another I used to look forward to always! Now I am in love with Mary Janes Farm Mag, and Boho Mag. Real Simple will always be one of my faves too. I highly recommend those three to anyone. Mary Janes Farm, Boho and Real Simple!

I used to love magazines..BUT..they were mostly adverts, way overpriced, eventually the same old stuff rehashed--especially BHG. And they were always 'piled' up, pressuring me to read them, to get caught up and then when I was finished what to do with all that paper. Couldn't bear to throw it away and if there was much lovliness couldn't bear to pass it on either--didn't want to toss it, but also didn't want to have it hanging about in a deep dark recess.

Once I discovered the internet, which feels like it's free--though it's really not because of the connection fee, but I'd have it anyway--I never looked back. So much lovliness to see for 'free'--no worries about overspending because the monthly net bill is a fixed priced so I'm a kid in a candy store--AND...on the net so many many wonderfully talented people who challenge and enthuse me.

WHO has time to read magazines once they discover the net? AND why would they spend $6-10 per mag when most already have acess to the internet--the bill is in the mail anyway?

It's a shame magazines are dying, but I think they brought some of it upon themselves. Price is the biggest issue. They are loaded with tons of advertisement, and still the magazine cost a small fortune. Would they lower the price I'd likely buy them once again, even with the internet. But as long as they are more than a dollar or two, no way.

Honestly, with the loads of companies who advertise in those magazines--who PAY to advertise in them--plus the high cost to purchase, I wonder how much those magazine companies are making per issue?

I too have lost some of my interest in magazines and I think the biggest part of that is that I keep seeing the same things over and over.
Take Martha Stewart. In this years' SPECIAL Halloween Issue probably 70% of the ideas are repeated from past years. I know, because I have the past years' magazines in my bookshelves. Now, as a blogger I understand how hard it is to come up with new content year after year but hey, this is Martha. She has minions! They have a ton of ideas. If I want to see her old ideas I should be able to go to her website and see them. I don't want to pay a HUGE amount of money to look at a magazine I've already seen before. Give me NEW ideas!
I used to get Country Living (still do) along with other magazines they produced. I saw the same idea in each magazine all in the same month. I was paying for 2 or 3 magazines and actually getting the ideas from one of them. I keep hearing that there are "no new ideas" just re-invented old ideas but I know there are amazingly talented people out there and I think magazines could do better than they are.
Don't get me wrong, I still get Martha and Country Living and I go to Borders and pick up Stampington & Company magazines as they come out but for the most part magazines just aren't what they used to be.
Anyway, just my 5 cents worth.
Vicki
http://www.creativegoddess.typepad.com

Seems to me that most of the magazines have tried to turn themselves into webpages in order to compete. And yes, mostly they are thinly disguised ads.

Don't know the last time I bought a magazine, and I used to be HOOKED! (Of course I used to write for CL, too...)

and by the way, not the kind of magazine that most mention here, but I miss Draw, Drawing Board, Sketchbook, and Personal Journaling, as well!

I love Victoria and Tea Time, and around now,when the Christmas stuff starts hitting the stands, I usuaaly pick up some others--maybe Southern Living, Paula Deen, or Martha Stewart.

I thought it was just me. I am having a hard time sitting down and enjoying my magazines these days. My fave right now is 'Body & Soul'. I just love it - I love the articles about taking care of yourself naturally. But I have had a hard time really getting into it since my old fave "O at Home" ceased publication. I have yet to find a decorating/home replacement. Even 'Coastal Living' hasn't been able to bring back the old joy.

Grieving forever over Home Companion!
Yes, it is our fault...I picked up a magazine today and page after page I said that bloggers do this better.

jeanne d arc living, I am in a swoon. It is ridiculously expensive, but it is like the most beautiful design book.

Loved it in Danish, even tho I can not read danish. And now that it is in English, be still my magazine loving heart.

I hear a faint rendition of "Taps" when I'm in the magazine isle, but I won't give up. Heart this photo. FAB blog! Thanks so much for stopping by my blog.