Magnetic albums are not your friend

If you are the proud owner of a magnetic photo album from back in the day, you may want to drag them out of the cedar chest, attic or bookcase and reconsider.

It was a wonderful concept; an album where you peeled back the clear page that was made of mylar or PVC, laid out your photos on the page that required no glue, tape or photo corners, add a few comments or dates about the photos, throw in some ephemera; such as tickets, cards and pressed flowers, then carefully smooth out the clear page over your album pages and call it a day.

Sadly, while those albums were a good idea, they have not only been deemed to not be archival safe, but proven. The glue that adheres those photos to the page is highly acidic and over time, will totally erode those precious photos and items adhered to those pages in the album page.

You need to get those photographs out of there NOW.

There are a couple of ways to do it.

• You can carefully, by hand, lift the photos off the page, by gently pulling them off.
• There is a product called UNDU, a liquid that negates glue on items and will safely pull the photos and memorabilia off the album pages. It will not harm your photos and dries quickly. UNDU is also great for removing stickers and labels from products.
• Heat, such as a hair dryer on low, together with waxed dental floss will also help in lifting the photos and ephemera from the pages.

So now that you removed all your photos from the magnetic albums what do you do??

• You can purchase an archival safe photo album and add your pictures to that.
• You can throw them in an archival safe photo box
• Or, you can get into a hobby such as scrapbooking that will allow your creativity to flow and eventually become the gatekeeper of the entire family’s photo welfare.

I launched into my scrapbooking hobby about 12 years ago, and I became the totally obnoxious policeman of all things photographic. I’m very clear on my stand concerning the care and cherishing of photographs, not to mention the identities and stories that accompany said photos, so imagine my surprise when my sister-in-law whips out a magnetic album chockfull of heritage photos.

I was speechless. For a moment or three.

I gave her “the look” as she denied all knowledge of the assembling of this album. I then took the album into protective custody and informed her that I would “take care of it.”

I am now in the midst of removing the photos, creating a digital archive of the photos and scrapbooking them using archival safe products.

As there are about 25 album pages that average 4-6 photos each which results in a LOT of pictures. There is also no rhyme or reason why they were bundled together. It was to be an album about the sister-in-law, however, photos of others creeped in there. Some identified, some not.

So here’s my plan of attack.

• I’m carefully removing photos a page at a time, photographing them, and putting sticky notes on them as to identify them. Most of them have the information written on the back in ink. (sigh).
• I am using the original photographs as they will be more protected scrapped than laying around in a shoebox somewhere.
• I decided to re-use the 3 ring binder the album came in. Size 10.5 x 11.5
• Because of the album size all my layouts/pages will be 8.5 x 11
• For consistency, I decided to use black 8.5.x11 acid and lignin free cardstock as the base for the page.
• Again, to keep the album flowing, I am using patterned paper that is “heritage” in context and look; such as Seven Gypsies.
• For more continuity, I’m using the same alpha font, stamps, embellishments and punches.
• I’m also grouping the photos on the page in a way that will tell a story, and I’m also leaving blank tags and squares (journaling spots) so that my sister-in-law can write about the story of the pictures herself.
• I’m also reusing some of the page designs, it provides consistency throughout the album and takes the guess work out and makes the process go a little faster.

Because of the choices I made, this album will flow together easily and hopefully, quickly as carving out the time to work on it is the hard part. In scrapping for someone else, especially non-scrappers, I keep the pages simple and graphic because simple and graphic, like the little black dress, will transcend time and fads.