Another post! And some sketchy news

This will be my third post this week. I think that is a record for me. And I even posted at Crafting Jewish Style one day. Today, I am posting a layout for a "Stretch your Sketch" challenge over at Ella Publishing. Ella Publishing and not Simply Scrapping Crafts, you ask? Yes, I say. I will tell you more about that shortly.

First, the challenge graphics:

Then the sketch:

And then my layout:

With a closeup:

Or Two:

And my journaling:

For 3-4 weeks in a row, Max was away for Shabbos. Each week was another Bar Mitzvah. Even though he was home the other six days of the week, we were all happy to have a Shabbos all together again. Even Sam. Sam stayed home from Shul that day, and Max did not go hang out with his friends, as he usually does. They both stayed home and played together all day. And it was spring, so Shabbos ended late.
When school ended in June, Sam had a sleepover. He was driven home late the following night. Max kept asking when Sam was coming home. Even Max had to admit he missed the little guy.
Yes, these 2 fight a lot. But it seems there is some love there, too. Or as Sam put it; “It’s no fun without Max to fight with.”

And now about Simply Scrapping:

Unfortunately, the site had to close down. The owner, Judy Law, needed to focus on her health, her family, and her business, so she needed to shut it down. I was sad when I got the news, but very thankful for the opportunity to be part of the sketch design team there. And, I am looking forward to exploring other goings on that the World Wide Web has to offer. (Like this sketch series.)

Having to create a layout based on a sketch every week was a challenge for me, and I think I am a better scrapbooker for it. Since I had weekly "deadlines," it pushed me to create layouts about people that I didn't usually scrap about (myself included), instead of just scrapping when I had some good pictures or stories of my kids. I learned how to adapt sketches to fit my style, while maintaining the elements of the sketch. That was hard at first, but I got better at it as I did it more. It got me to work a little faster, and it helped me to learn to say "it's good enough." Sometimes a layout sits on my desk for weeks till I feel like it is "just right." I didn't have that freedom, and I had to look at my work and say: "you would like to keep working on this, but there isn't anything wrong with this layout. It looks good the way it is." I have many more pages and stories recorded because of that. So for all those reasons, and more that I will think about after I publish this post, I am grateful.