How to Protect Your Precious Physical Memories

Most of us have some sort of a collection of family memorabilia. It might be in a cigar box or a hat box stored in the master bedroom closet. It almost certainly contains a stack of pictures either from a time before pictures were digital or those that you printed out because they were especially meaningful. If you’re like us, it also contains little mementos like a hospital bracelet from when your kids were born, a piece of artwork from kindergarten and a silver dollar from your grandfather. The only thing worse than not having those memories would be accidentally destroying them through improper care. Let’s talk about how you can keep them safe for future generations.

First of all, we’re a framing shop. So we obviously have a bias towards one particular method of photo and memento preservation. We also really believe these precious memories are best kept in a way that will allow you to enjoy them for years. So our first stop is always to take the most important things from that box and frame them. Whether it’s pictures or in a shadowbox, a well framed item done professionally and with proper archival materials will look just as beautiful when your grandchildren hang them up in their house. But, let’s assume that you already did that and now you still have some things that you don’t want hanging on the wall, but you do want to keep and protect. Here’s what we do:

Photographs

We’re going to be talking here about physical copies of pictures. If you’re looking for a way to take care of your digital photographs, check out our other article here. First, what not to do. Don’t throw them all in a box, don’t tape them up and we wouldn’t use a “sticky” picture album (the ones with adhesive applied to the pages to stick the photos to). We do like plastic photo albums, though. The best are the ones with sleeves for each picture. That way the pictures are individually stored and protected, even from simple surface scratches. But not all plastics are created equal. Polyethylene, polypropylene, or polyester plastics are safe, but make sure to avoid plastics made with PVC or those that don’t label what kind of plastic they’re made from. Some companies do make cheap photo albums with plastics that are not archive safe, so check when you buy. If you’re not sure, we do have archival photo supplies in the shop and we can hook you up with a safe photo album.

Photo albums are great for pictures you might want to look at, but you may have hundreds of pictures that you just want to store safely. In that case, you can use an archival photo storage box. You can get these in the right sizes for your particular photos, but if they’re important, we’d take one more step and individually protect each picture from scratches and handling marks. You can put each one in either an individual plastic sleeve or an acid free paper envelope (not the postal kind, but the photo kind) or interleave acid free and buffered tissue paper between the prints. 

At least as important as how you store photos, however, is where you store them. Attics and basements are the worst. The constant fluctuations in temperature and humidity can really take a toll on not just your pictures, but all your keepsakes. Basically, let your photos live somewhere you’d like to live, at temperatures under 80 degrees and with neither really high or really low humidity. Consistency is also key. Switching back and forth between wide storage temperatures and humidities is as bad for your photos as just storing them in a hot dry attic or a damp basement.

Newspaper

Storing newspaper articles is such an issue that it deserves its own section. Newsprint is the cheapest, crappiest paper they can find, since it’s mostly meant to be read once and thrown away. For the most part, the process is similar to how you care for photographs, but with less success. Even if your storage conditions are perfect, newspapers will continue to degrade, though much slower than when stored improperly. There are chemical treatments that can be done to newsprint, but the process is not one you can do at home and is best left to professionals. But at home, just take extra care to keep important newspaper clippings in the safest and darkest conditions that you can. Stored separately in plastic sleeves and kept in a dark archival storage box, your newsprint will still probably outlast you.

Cloth

This is another one we run into alot. We often see things like bridal gowns, high school jerseys or baptismal clothes that people want to hold on to. Start with a clean item. Dirt and biological matter can attract insects and molds, the two biggest enemies of long term storage of cloth items. But be very careful cleaning already aged cloth items. If it’s too fragile, you can do more damage cleaning it than leaving it. After the cloth is as clean as it is going to get, it’s time to store the item. The ideal method of storage is laid out flat without any folds, but this may not be practical, so just try to minimise folding the garment. Then store it in an acid free dark container. While it may seem like you want an airtight container to keep out pests, they can actually create their own environment inside the container and encourage mold growth. So pick an archival storage box that still allows the item to breathe. Before putting the clothing in a box, wrap it with a non acidic barrier, something like unsealed mylar or acid free tissue paper would be ideal. Any areas with puffed out sleeves or ruffles should be stuffed with acid free tissue paper to help prevent creases. Once it’s all boxed up, follow the photo storage guides by avoiding extremes of temperature and humidity.

Conclusion

There are dozens of different keepsakes we’ve seen over the years, and some require more care than others. We just pointed out some highlights of a couple of the most common mementos, but if you have any more specific questions, just stop by the shop and ask. As they say, talk is cheap. In fact, we talk for free. And, of course, if you need any of these archival quality storage options, we carry most of them in the shop and we can get the rest within a couple days.