question

[beaver]

I have a book that would be great for me to altar to a scrapbook but the pages are not acid free ,but if I use acid free paper mount my photos on acid free paper will it make it ok
thanks

[WearCraft]

well, I always thought that if the photos are mounted on acid free and glued with acid free that it would be fine to put them on non acid free papers/pages. Might have to think about putting something protective between the pages though. If you are mounting on acid free, the photo might be facing acidic when the book is closed. Bit of vellum in between like an old fashioned wedding album? ... but I am not a chemist lol and I am not that precious about the whole acid free thing so maybe I am not the right one to answer! I will be popping back to see what the right answer to this one is! Happy scrapping, jenx

[stitching lady]

Using acid free products slows down the deterioration of your photos - very acidic products and poor quality photos degrade very quickly eg photos from the 70s stored in magnetic albums yellowed incredibly quickly!

You can also get pens that test how acidic the book pages are. The more acid free stuff you put between the acidic pages and the photos the slower the photos will degrade. It is all a matter of personal choice and whether you want your finish book for your lifetime or your grandchildren's lifetime.

Hope this helps.

[beaver]

Thanks for that all of you I knew I would get a answer hear

[MaryAnne]

Keep in mind that acid migrates. So while mounting a photo on acid free paper will slow the migration it won't stop it entirely.

There did used to be a product called Archival Mist that you could spray on to neutralize the acid (as well as recipes for home made mixtures that you could bathe paper in to do the same) but from what I recall AM was pretty expensive.

It might detract from the page A BIT, but you could mount the photos on the pages inside archival photo sleeves, which might be easier to find at photo shops, etc. if the album is one you really, really want to use.

[beaver]

May have to change my plan thanks