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Keeping Your Photos Safe: The Scientific Side

The scientific side of keeping your photographs safe goes far beyond just keeping your photos away from water, dirt, high temperatures and making sure not to leave fingerprints and scratches. Although those are important, there are some more scientific things to be aware of. Most scrapbookers have heard the word acidic and the words lignin free. Perhaps you’ve even heard of buffered. But what does all this mean to a scrapbooker and how do you take proper precautions to make sure that the supplies you are using won’t damage your photographs? The first rule is always to look for supplies … Continue reading →

Keeping Your Photos Safe: Fingerprints and Scratches

Fingerprints can quickly diminish the quality of your photographs. And although a fingerprint can be avoided or wiped away, a scratch is permanent and it is a costly situation to have repaired by a professional. These are two additional ways that your photos can be damaged and two situations that need to be addressed. When handling your photographs, you should hold the edges. Some experts recommend wearing a special type of glove, but I have found that unnecessary. As long as when holding photographs, you attempt to hold the edges, you should be alright. You can place your photos in … Continue reading →

Keeping Your Photos Safe: Extreme Temperatures

Continuing on in the Keeping Your Photos Safe series, another large contributor to photo damage was listed as temperatures and climate issues. In this regard, temperatures can play a huge part in how fast or how slowly your photographs fade. This isn’t just the case with photo storage, but in album storage as well. The sad stories I heard at a photo preservation class I taught, told about photographs ruined from basement storage, attic storage, garage storage and even storage units at non climate control companies. People have lost precious memories due to completely controllable circumstances. First, attics and basements … Continue reading →

One of the Best Gifts You Can Give Your Child: a Lifebook

A “lifebook” in the adoption community has similarities to a scrapbook, a baby book and a storybook. However, its main purpose is to provide the adopted child with a sense of continuity and a way to make sense of the past. Most adoptive parents have plenty of photos dating from their child’s arrival. But some adopted children have been known to believe that they were not born as other children are born, that they literally came from an airplane or an agency or sprang into existence as preschoolers. Others are old enough to realize they had a prior existence. While … Continue reading →

Heritage Photos – How Best To Deal With Them

Recently I was asked for some help on organizing and scrapbooking some very old memorabilia, as well as photos, that a woman had inherited from her family. Most of this dated back to WWII and although scrapbooking isn’t any different for those time periods, the delicacy of the photos as well as the memorabilia does pose special challenges. She found herself overwhelmed by all she had in her possession and being unsure as to what should be included and as safely as possible. I was also asked about 3 dimensional scrapbooking for the small pins, medals and name cards that … Continue reading →

The Do’s and Don’ts of Adhesive

After you’ve played around with different adhesives, it’s time to focus on the importance of choosing the right one and what to watch for. Here are a few Do’s and Don’ts for Adhesives: Do use adhesives that are photo-safe and acid-free. Don’t use your child’s glue stick. Be sure to check any type of adhesive for the words acid-free. In fact, glue sticks are not the best scrapbook adhesive. While perhaps they are very inexpensive, and some are even acid-free, however the glue often dries and becomes brittle. I’ve had several items come off layouts that I’ve used glue sticks … Continue reading →