Talk to me about paper & acid-free, lignin-free

[piratesmate]

I'm kind of curious about this. I've been to scrapping parties/crops where the consultants were insistent that you should only use papers that are acid & lignin free....that it's critical if you don't want your pix to basically turn to dust in 10 yrs. (Not literally what they said, I'm exaggerating for effect.)

I don't want to get into an argument about CM or CM's sales tactics. I'm just curious how many of you worry about it. I know I've read that some of you have bought paper at Michael's, AC Moore & even Wal-Mart. Are you diligent about taking this stuff home & testing the pH yourself?

One of my main reasons for asking.... I wonder how much different it really makes? I have photo albums from my grandmother, great-great aunt and DH's grandparents that date back to the turn of the century....the 20th century!

The photos in them are stored with newspaper clippings right on top of them....they're held in with those black photo corners we all used before we ever heard about acid or lignin in paper. They're also written on with a variety of inks. Some aren't in albums, they're just stored in old card boxes, shoe boxes, old metal bread boxes....

The interesting thing is that none of the pix have deteriorated. The only ones I've seen problems with are those I put in those magnetic albums in the 1980s & the pix have faded & turned yellow.

 

[ToDisney]

I agree... I have tons of my mom's stuff that is still in great shape, but the pictures in those magnetic albums are turning yellow... as well as the pages they're on.

Now with that said, I do buy paper for scrapbooking... A/F and L/F papers, but I also use other stuff in my books like metals (even chicken wire, which at Home Depot is actually called "poultry netting" ).

How's that for being wishy washy? LOL!!!

 

[piratesmate]

Poultry netting?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!


I was wondering about it because I'd like to use my printer for journaling but was told the inkjets weren't A/F. I've also seen so many really neat things added to pages over on 2peas & want to try some of that stuff.

What's your oldest SB using A/F L/F stuff? Can you really tell a difference to the pix left in the original envelopes? (I was also told that was a dreadful thing to do with them....but that's where nearly 30 years of pix are!)

 

[pattyT]

First off -
let me say that I am soooooo jealous -
I am so mentasental and would love to have that kind of stash from generations ago!

I use CM albums because I LOVE the durability of them (the only one where the kids haven't cracked the binding - etc) and they look great on a shelf..
but once you opened it
woo-hooo
were not talkin cm here
all my pages are wallpapered (which is mainly because then I can easily move the pages around easily that way) and cm doesn't even sell 12x12 papers!
I haven't done the chicken wire ting yet (but I will have to check that out)
I usually use the papers that are made for scrapping though.
If I am using something funky (washers, drywall tape, etc...) I usually don't have it touch the picture directly though

 

[piratesmate]

I'm sorry you don't have the kind of stash I do, PattyT! I just wish they'd been a bit more diligent in identifying the people in the pix! Some are labeled with what was on the picnic table, but nothing about who was there. I guess because they knew who everyone was.

I have 2 CM albums waiting to be filled, but I've felt so unsatisfied at the crops. They pages seem to be lacking something....I guess it's the pizazz that I see on the pages people have linked to here.

It makes perfect sense to keep the photos away from the weird stuff & I have the page protectors so I'm not terribly worried. Mostly I'm just curious as to what the pros here think!

Would you explain what you mean about wallpapering your pages? When I've viewed pages at 2peas, I see so many neat papers...but usually they're only in the corners or edges or something. Why would you want to move them around? Do you mean to place the page in a different place in the album?

Re: the chicken wire (Sorry - I'm still laughing about the poultry netting....It makes me think of chickens dressed as brides with netting veils. )

I've seen pages with quillings, wire letters, Scrabble tiles, shaker boxes, charms...Doesn't all that stuff make the pages/albums too thick and/or lumpy? Do you just limit how many pages you do that way?

 

[Stephres]

Yes, a little of that bulky stuff goes a long way. I try to limit the bulky embellishents so my book doesn't get too thick. I try to remind myself not every page needs to look like a layout from Creating Keepsakes. My theory is that I save and organize the negatives so if I lose a picture due to a metal embellishment touching it, I can always reprint it.

 

[FantasticDisFamily]

Let me preface these comments by saying chemistry is NOT my thing, but the person who told me this has a degree in chemistry and worked as a paper chemist for about 30 years before "retiring into the world of volunteerism". She is also a scrapper.

I had wondered the same thing as I have stuff dating back to the early 1900s and my mom's stuff from the late 40s-early 60s most of which seems fine. As piratesmate said it seems like it is the stuff in those magnetic albums from the 70s & 80s that are having the biggest problems.

So here is what Kristi told me...

Historically paper was made using natural solvents of which acid and lignin are not a part. However, beginning in the later 50s paper chemistry began experimenting with less expensive ways to produce high quality (translation BRIGHT WHITE) paper. As demand continued to increase (all those baby boomers in school, etc) the push continued. A process that basically was able to take really cheap materials, basically waste pulp that previously would have been disgarded could be turned in to all sorts of papers, cardboard, etc. At the same time the adhesives people were finding lots of synthetic ways to make adhesive. These two areas combined to make those albums we all stuck our pictures in to and it is the processing that added the acid especially to the paper/cardboard and glue. Photo papers of that era apparently remained exempt because the processing technique wouldn't work with the chemical base needed on photo processing paper.

Also since many of the older albums used BLACK pages the issue of taking color out never entered into the equation, and the pages that aren't black are generally a sort of natural color - again no issue of bleaching. It is when the demand was for WHITE and cheap that the real problem of acid especially entered in to the picture.

As I said, I'm not a chemist but isn't it amazing what one can learn when spending literally days on end in a room with two other women cutting out costumes?

Deb

 

[pattyT]

That does make sense Deb...

I will have to ask Mark his insight he worked in a local paper factory years ago...

Wallpapering -
is when I take a cm page and cover it with a whole piece of paper that my layout then is designed on and the whole thing is attached to the album page..
why? because #1 - I work out of order and it allows me to lift the page of
and #2 if I go to a crop I don't have to take an album just one page to use to cut the pages the right size..