Walk 93 Part 2

This week we look at the fun side of my visit to Flight 93. Times with my sister are NEVER dull, and we were both excited to do this event together. Also joining us were her boyfriend Jason and her daughter Sierra. Jason has very long arms (he's tall) and so he is essentially a human selfie-stick.

This layout is from the Creative Memories Virtual Crop. I liked the technique on the right page where you make cuts along only half of a square and fold down the inside. It creates a border and allows you to use both sides of the paper at the same time. I used paper from the Creative Memories "Fresh Fusion Brights" pack. The red matched our shirts and the reverse side in green accented nicely (red and green are opposites on the color wheel and always look good together--even if it isn't Christmas). This was the weekend we got the mystery box and the double star punch was part of that kit. I used it to finish filling in some of the blank areas around the page. I liked the right side of the sketch where we created faux Polaroid photos. Cutting a mat longer than the photo by about an inch gives you that look. It also leaves a great space for journaling.

This layout focuses on the walk. Whenever I go to a National Park I always seem to find those like-minded passport devotees like myself and this walk was no exception. If you see the photo below where I'm talking to 2 people (lime and red hoodies), that was me touting the benefits of the National Park Travelers Club to potential members. Lisa found it amusing and took a photograph of it.

This layout is also from the CM Virtual Crop. Challenge 6 featured a card and a border. I used the border sketch to create toppers for these 2 pages. I used some papers that were close in color but are not exactly the same print for the background. All of the paper comes from a collection called "Painted Harvest" which is an older CM line. The fall tones matched the photos well. The borders include the Cable Chain border maker cartridge. Decorations are flowers that I have been gathering over the years. I tried to stick with the red colors to match the layout. I know flowers are not exactly what you expect for fall but I think they work well here.

Walk 93 Part 1

In September of 2015, Flight 93 held a charity walk to raise money for the park. They had just installed a new path around the site. My sister Lisa had always wanted to do something like this with me so I invited her and it ended up being us plus her boyfriend Jason and her daughter Sierra. We arrived at the park early and had time before the event to tour the visitor center and overlook the park from the new balcony. 

This layout is based on a sketch from the Creative Memories Virtual Crop from September 2020. The paper is an older pack called "Reflections". The pack included some matching paper tape and I used that to make the diagonal stripes on the right page. I liked the soft feel for a rather somber occasion.

It was interesting to tour the visitor center with Sierra who was only a year old when the event occurred. And even years later, I needed the tissues provided by the park at the end of the display. 

This page also was part of the September Virtual Crop. This crop was the first time they instituted a mystery box. We didn't open it until just before the first challenge launched. The papers included in that box (there was also a tape runner and a punch) were used for this layout. It had a sort of star-light feel to it and matched the tone of the displays. I was also able to use up some button embellishments (paper buttons) and a few ABC-123 stickers. Next week we'll focus on the happier side of the walk.

Some NPS sites are sadder than others.

This entry looks at a layout from my first visit to the Flight 93 Memorial in 2007. My mom and brother joined Jim and I for a Pirates game in Pittsburgh. My brother Joe left the next morning for his cross-country solo road trip while Jim, my mom and I headed back to Harrisburg. On the way I wanted to stop at the site not only because it is a National Park but because I grew up just north of here in South Fork. This is the literal representation of the phrase "Hitting close to home".

The site is a small red barn and a fence. Like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, people leave tributes and memorabilia at the fence which the rangers collect and categorize. They have the transcripts of the black box recorder and reading it is incredibly saddening. We stayed to hear a volunteer talk about the flight events. All of the benches have the names of the victims engraved along the backs. One of them had the last name of Corrigan (no relation that I know of).

This was a more difficult layout to create. Although it is patriotic it also had to be subdued so the background of dark red with a light stripe worked well to bring out the dark memorial stones.

In this layout I finally figured out what to do with the large tag stickers that Creative Memories created. In previous layouts I had tried to write on them but being glossy, the ink just wiped away. The words "Pride and Honor" were all on one line in a sticker but I cut them into 3 parts and attached them to the tag and voila--a mini title. Similarly, I used the "Home of the Brave" to begin the title box. I really brought the emotion out. Simple stickers of hearts and stars finish the detail.