oh the suspense of it all

especially when i figure i'm talkin to myself most of the time here. (wink)

ok the last picture i posted was of this album

I bought this album in 1984 - shortly after I was married. We had a stack of photographers proofs, candid photos friends and family had given us, and various and sundry memorabilia i had collected - all wedding related. (actually there are a few relationshippy items too) I needed a place to put them so they would be safe.

Safe is the operative word in that sentence. When we moved here 10 years ago i had put all the photos together in i think 2 large boxes - this album and a few other albums included. I think that was the last time i looked at any of them. At the time they seemed fine. A few months ago i hauled out the unpacked box and pulled this album out and was a little concerned. There were obvious signs of deterioration - not to my photos - yet - but to the pages of the album. Since the album is over 20 years old I know now it is a very unsafe place for those pics etc to be. The pages have this glue on it - under the plastic protective peel up pages - i guess they really didn't mean "magnetic" its really just plain old sticky. Anyway that glue is turning brown. And fortunately for me my photos etc are not stuck to it. (I know how bad these kinds of albums really are: my mom had one and the photos and news clippings are stuck so bad to the pages you'd have to destroy the items to get them out of there. Bad. Really bad. When I made her an album a few years back i had some of those items colored copied to include in my album - as well as save them at that stage of deterioration.)

Here's a picture of the inside of my album. If you click on the photo you'll be able to see the browning at the edges of the pages.

So - finally it was time to get this project off my tadoo list. I don't want anything to happen to these pictures etc. They're old and there are no negatives. Yes, I have the photographers album (which is gorgeous and has the best photos of the day) but it doesn't have all these pictures and memorabilia.

I will post some of the pages i've made thus far. I'm not going totally Suzy and just getting it done - but i'm not going off the deepend either with papers and embellishments either. Sort of a happy medium.

Now i've come to the portion of our program kids where i'm gonna do my first little rant. I know its most unbecoming of Suzy to rant but allow me a small amount of latitude.

Preservation is important. Saving old photos is really important. And ensuring that original photos (where there is no negative available) are safe is a worthy use of your time. I think its very important to consider the products you're using. Most of the stuff out there for sale is pretty safe. But i've noticed a trend in scrapbooking where people are using anything and everything on their pages. Recently in particular i saw some people reusing packaging from different products to make things. Recycling is a wonderful thing - but not on your pages that have irreplaceable photos - ok kids? If you wanna make art do it with a copy of your irreplaceable photo - not the original.

Ok- that wasn't so bad now was it. Suzy doesn't like controversy so she tries staying away from all those boards and blogs that get nasty. It just isn't worth my time to be honest - i like to use what precious time i do have on my scrapbooking (and other small smackerels )

For now - i'm off to do some un-Suzy things and then get back to work on this album.