Adhesives, Photography & Lessons Learned

I've selected some of my best pages (best in my opinion) and began photographing them.  Certainly a skill set of its own!  I've noticed some of the pages set out in the house as temporary decorations throughout the year warped.  Too much heat?  Not enough support?  Really, there was no clue as to what factors, or combination therein, cased this discernible warping.  The largest concern was that once warped the page could not be straightened or photographed properly.

I just LOVE the internet.  There's absolutely no question that anyone can ask that the internet can't provide an answer.  However did we live our lives without it? A couple of inquiries solved the riddle about warping.

The key seems to involve the amount of adhesives used on the page.  The more glues, the more certainty to warp.  Well... that's a problem since almost everything on the page requires taking down onto the page. 

Early on I understood different sorts of glue were on the market, and many not suited for scrapbooking due to acid or other chemical content.  Fortunately I have a niece with years of experience in the hobby pound this information into my head before I ever picked up a pair of scissors, and nothing was ever ruined or threatened by paper- or photo-toxic adhesives. 

Without a little experience in this craft it's difficult imagining how many, many different types of adhesives are available specifically for scrapbooking. There are dimensional dots that raise an element off the page.  There are liquid glues for paper-to-paper bonding.  Glue runners, where a line of rubbery glue bonds many types of elements together.  All stickers come pre-glued.  And finally, for purposes of discussion, there are glitter glues.

(Upon reflection the previous two paragraphs probably been posted previously... if so, whoops.  It's not as if anyone happens on to the page anyway.)

So!  Is it the weight of the glues or the types of glues that cause the warping?

The project in question begins with a heavy paper, or what I consider card stock.  In this case I used the Cricut to cut out "Give Thanks" in 3 inch letters to mount on the page.  (Side note:  the size of the script was primarily determined by the skill set I had at the time in working with the Cricut.  Today I could easily bring that down to 1 inch.)  This element was also heavily decorated with glitter, since this was my first work with the stuff and I wanted to experiment.   And, because the glittered element was never to actually come into contact with the photo page, I cheated and used regular Elmer's Glue from a bottle.  (Covering a 3 inch phrase with glitter requires a whole lot of glue!)  There were several dimensional stickers added to balance the height of the overall page.  Finally, since the page was created to decorate a holiday table, it was placed on a plate holder for a full month.

When described as such, retrospect tells me I probably did everything possibly wrong to the page.  The tip offered here is:  watch the use of glue and the quantity used.

Live and Learn!!

_________________________________________

In a huge departure of my buying philosophy "never pay full price for anything," I did just that.  Not once, but twice!


Paper companies come out with full lines of accessories in almost all collections.  This usually includes: 12x12, 8x8, and sometimes 6x6 inch paper pads, individual sheets, stickers, chip board sets, perhaps coordinating ribbons, alphabet stickers, stamps and possibly more.  The longer a collection has been out in the market, the harder it is to find many of the accessories.  Thus and therefore, to assure the option of buying collection accessories, it has to be bought early on, and usually at full price.  This lesson came painfully when I found an older collection and discovered nothing but the one pad and a sticker set remained.  That was after I conducted the most extensive internet search possible.

Graphic 45 specializes in nostalgic 1920-30's images in incredible colours.  It's a great paper to work with be that scrapbooking, or in creating home decor; some pages are nice enough to frame as is.  It also runs on the expensive side.  Thus far, I found the paper line too intimidating to use in everyday scrapping.  What I have worked with has been found at greatly reduced prices with limited accessories, if any.  This year they came out with a line called "Little Darlings."  It was love at first sight.  I knew this was a collection applicable to so many pages I want to scrap, but had not found paper to do the intended photos justice.  I bought the FULL line, except the 3 different stamp sets and the 8x8 paper pad; however, I bought extra copies of some of the accessories.  I all but fell over when the price totaled over $50, but every scrap of this stuff will be used for years.  I may go back and make up for the accessories not originally purchased my next allowance cycle.

Then I found a completed layout from scrapbooking.com featuring a different company line.  I used restraint and didn't go all out and buy the full collection, but did purchase enough of the coordinating supplies to pull together a couple of antique photo pages.  Again at full price. 

This is the type of post (very chatty) where there's not much I can't do for the day.  Obviously, this is one of those days.

I couldn't resist putting an image of the collection here!

Graphic 45 Little Darlings Main Image Page