Increasing the Life of Your Scrapbooking Albums One of the main materials you use in scrapbooking is your scapbooking album. They are, actually, the body that holds the papers, photos, cards and embellishments. The albums is the protector of all your memorabilia since this is where you store and preserve them. There are lots of scrapbooking album avaialble -- hundreds, perhaps thousands -- which makes it difficult to categorize them into groups rather than just on their different sizes. Most modern scrapbooking features albums sizes 8 1/2" × 11" and 12" × 12", but many scrappers are now using smaller sizes such as  8" × 8" and 6" × 6". Size is, of course, simply a matter of personal preferences. The albums you use for scrapbooking provide protection for all your memories, however, they do tend to show wear in time. Therefore, here are some basic scrapbooking album care ideas that shouild help lessen immediate damage that could occur due to some harmful elements. To prevent any type of disaster, you should aways keep your albums away from liquids that could spoil the outside covering of your scrapbook. In addition, they could cause damage to photos, memorabilias, negatives and any non water-resistant materials you've used on the pages. You should therefore keep liquids away from your working area as well. Another disaster lurking is direct sunlight which can certainly cause colors to fade which reduces the quality of the album. Another problem is extreme temperatures. If the temperature is too low moisten can get into the album itself and too hot an environment will cause damage as well. Damage caused by oily hands may not be immediately apparent. The puritan's way is to always secure your hands with cotton gloves when handling your albums, but there's no need to go to that extreme. Just wash your hands regularly with acid neutralizing agents or simply don't touch the photographs with your whole hand to prevent any deterioration that could be caused by skin oils. Proper storage of your negatives, layouts and other materials should prevent tears, scratches or bends and increase the lifespan of each set. Keep them in a sturdy container or acid-free envelopes for filing. Plastics are often used as sealers or protectors for memorabilias and photographss, however, always keep in mind they're not all created equal. In fact, you may actually be better off with no protection at all than with specific types of plastics that could cause larger problems. It's recommended that you never use vinyl plastics because they contain polyvinyl chloride or PVC which can be a very destructive material. This substance is unstable and could definitely cause some corrosion to your precious memories. Again, the effects may not be noticable at first, however. It's best to use polyester or acrylic materials because they have more stable properties and that will give your stuff a better chance for longevity. Use acid-free papers, but you should know that many types of acidic papers are found in your local scrapbooking stores. Be aware that if a light colored paper of a specific manufacturer is acid-free that their darker shades will be as well. Pigmentation and die is going to affect the acid level of a specific paper, so if you're not sure, check the label or test out any unlabeled papers. Why is there so much fuss about acids and acid levels? It's simply due to the fact that acids are major contributors to the deterioration of quality in your scrapbooking materials. These acids are seen in newspapers where pages start to turn yellow in time. If you don't want this type of damage or reduction of quality of your scrapbooking albums, keep watch for acidity levels in the materials being used. Proper cocumentation for your scrapbooks is important as well. Years in the future you'll look back at your photos and you'll be very pleased you took enough time to label them. However, make sure you use appropriate materials when labeling. For instance, don't use ballpoint pens because they usually require writing with a certain amount of pressure and there's always the possibility that ink could transfer from one photo to another, especially if your photos are glued in a photo stack. So, hopefully some of these guidelines will help you to better preserve your hard work and increase the quality preservation of all your most cherished memory keepers.

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