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How each of us chooses to remember the horrific events of September 11, 2001 in our scrapbooks will be an intensely personal decision. Some of you have told me that you simply are not even ready to begin thinking about working on these pages and instead are journaling your thoughts for future scrapbooking. However we document the tragedies, we all realize that they are unmistakably a significant chapter of our nation's history.

The pages above are from my own scrapbook, and therefore will be how my children will look back on these happenings. Rather than focusing the pages completely on the acts of terrorism that took place, I chose to look at how our nation has responded. Please feel free to glean any ideas that will help you record this time of history for posterity. I am also storing in a photo safe page protector the entire special issue of Time magazine that covered September 11th. However, I will be storing this behind the actual scrapbook pages seen above, so that a reader may choose to take it out and look at it, but will not casually come across those difficult photos while flipping through the pages of my scrapbook.

America Unites Page Materials:

Title Template: Provo Craft Fancy Block
Red, White, and Blue Cardstock: Club Scrap Nautical Kit
Red Pillar Embossed Cardstock: Club Scrap Music and Fine Arts Kit
Star Punch: Marvy Uchida
Photos of New York: Scanned from (and all rights reserved by) USA Today
Photo of White House: Scanned from (and all rights reserved by) TV Guide
Poem: "One", author Cheryl Sawyer Click here to read the complete poem.

Techniques Used:

First, I cut the first 3" which contained the embossed pillar off of the red Club scrap cardstock. I then mounted this piece on white, and blue to offset it from the background of the layout. Wavy 1 1/2" strips were cut from white cardstock using the Creative Memories cutting system. The title was traced from the Provo Craft "Fancy Block Letter" template and then matted again on white. Small star punches were added to the capital letters. The before and after photos of the New York skyline and the photo of the White House were scanned into my computer and printed on Kodak Glossy Inkjet Paper. This prevented me from having to deal with the deterioration of actual newspaper clippings. For more information on preserving newspaper see links below. Keeping these pages fairly simple helps focus on the austerity and the meaningfulness of the photos themselves.

Rebecca