Good things fall together for good people

Jennifer Schaerer

As you now know, there were changes made at Creating Keepsakes magazine earlier this week – the editor in chief and managing editor positions were eliminated and we had to say goodbye to two good friends and co-workers.

Lara Penrod, a superhero editor, has the ability to leap an egregious grammatical error in a single bound. She was hired in the fall of 2009 as a senior editor for Creating Keepsakes and was quickly recognized by then-newly appointed editor in chief Jennafer Martin as a solid candidate for a managing editor. Besides her time here at Creating Keepsakes, Lara’s career in writing, editing, and project management included tenure at Stampin’ Up! as well. We’ll miss her exceptional editing skills, and know she’ll find that open window and go flying right through it. The very best of luck to you, Lara!

Lara Penrod, editor extraordinaire

It’s not easy to capture Jennafer Martin’s time with the company in a few words – or even a few paragraphs. On a personal level, I can look back to the summer of 2007 for my first interaction with her. She had just been promoted from managing editor of Paper Crafts magazine to editor in chief of Simple Scrapbooks and Digital Scrapbooking magazines, and was interviewing candidates to fill her vacated role on the Paper Crafts team. I was one of those candidates, and although I couldn’t take the job when it was offered, I will never forget how she leaned forward to listen with every receptor in her body engaged. She’d acknowledge with a smile and comment to summarize what I’d said, and she made me feel as though she had soaked in every detail to file away for later reference. If you’ve ever had a conversation with Jennafer then you’ve undoubtedly had this same experience.

Jennafer Martin - The Great Listener

Then, when I was hired as the editor in chief of Paper Crafts in August 2008, she was my best teacher and historian as a peer when I needed reference information. She has an amazingly soothing presence in chaotic times and I came to be a shadow in her doorway more and more often.

I watched with admiration as Jennafer worked very professionally to shutter Simple Scrapbooks and Digital Scrapbooks when the decision was made to cease publishing those titles in late 2008, and found her place as the new media managing editor for Creating Keepsakes. In the challenging months leading up to our acquisition by New Track Media, Jennafer was again the safe port in the storm for so many people on all the teams. Everyone naturally gravitated to her calm and balanced space, and in July 2009 she was asked to take the helm of Creating Keepsakes to get our scrapbooking ship on an equally calm and balanced path.

She’ll be missed by everyone here and, in the words of Marilyn Monroe, sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. Jennafer, we can’t wait to see what better things fall together for you!

P.S. You can find Jennafer at ZoeSoulSpa.com or on Facebook if you’d like to stay in touch.