Albums should be stored upright and are best stored where you live - in about 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius) or less with relative humidity of 20 to 50 percent. Keep them away from light, excess humidity and temperature extremes, such as those that occur in an attic or basement. If you live in a high-humidity area, you may want to consider using a dehumidifier.

The amount of material placed on each page determines the number of pages that can be inserted in an album. Overloading albums should be avoided. Creative Memories makes the following recommendations:

Use a soft, slightly damp (not wet) cloth and work from the outside of the stain using a gentle lifting motion. You may need to add a little diluted mild soap for stubborn spots.

Photo-safe polypropylene Page Protectors slip over album pages and protect the pages and photographs from fingerprints, abrasion, accidental spills, and environmental pollutants. Page Protectors also protect the facing page from acidic memorabilia. Page Protectors are recommended for all albums to reduce the chance of damage and to prevent air pollution from harming your prints.

Place your album page in a manila file folder. Slide the folder and page into the Page Protector. Once the page is inside the protector, pull just the folder out.

The polypropylene coverholders hold the album pages in place and may be removed to add additional pages.

Albums deteriorate more rapidly and become vulnerable to fungal growth if the relative humidity of the room in which they are stored is above the recommended level of 50 percent. If the relative humidity is below 20 percent, albums and photographs become brittle. Creative Memories does not recommend storing albums in attics or basements, because the temperature and humidity levels are more likely to fall outside the recommended storage conditions.

The bookcloth manufacturer already has treated the album covers and does not recommend coating them with any type of protective spray.

Yes. However, Creative Memories does not reimburse the customer for additional time or money spent on embossing or painting the album cover if it needs to be replaced due to a manufacturing defect. If the album is personalized with Creative Memories Persona Imprinting, Creative Memories will emboss the replacement album at no charge.

Over the years, Creative Memories has made numerous changes in its product collection. In 1993 the color of the paper used for album pages changed from ivory to brilliant white. Consequently, these pages appear yellow in comparison to the album pages we see in our albums today. Extended exposure to light can also cause a slight change in the page color due to the bleaching of optical brighteners that are added to the pages to give them brilliance.

Creative Memories albums are not designed to be fire-resistant, and don’t offer any additional protection against fire damage. Use of Page Protectors, however, can reduce the effects of smoke and soot damage in some cases.

Our natural pages should be completely dry within twenty seconds of writing.

Our Page Protectors cannot absorb acid. Therefore, acid cannot be transferred through the Page Protectors.

Creative Memories does not recommend stacking albums. Storing your albums vertically allows the weight of the album to be evenly distributed over the entire spine and binding system, thereby removing pressure from the album pages. Stacking albums horizontally can damage your albums by placing pressure on the album cover and pages. The added pressure on the pages may lead to abrasions on your photographs or memorabilia, and possible denting of the cover.

For a short-term solution, place your albums and photographs in a sealed plastic bag, making sure to push out all of the air. Adding a package of silica gel to the bag will greatly reduce the risk of mold developing. The bag should then be sealed - either in a second bag or within an airtight container. This is a short-term, emergency solution. Your albums and photographs should be removed once the threat has passed. See “A Consumer Guide for the Recovery of Water-Damaged Digital and Traditional Prints” under the Library section.

Our paper-based stickers are acid-free, lignin-free, buffered, and pass the Photographic Activity Test (PAT), ensuring that they will not harm your photographs in any way over time. Transparent stickers are manufactured with photo-safe polyester. Creative Memories stickers are printed with pigmented ink that is fade-resistant and bleed-resistant, ensuring that the ink will not change over time.

The stickers are beyond their shelf life and have started to break down. Old stickers may become permanently adhered to the release liner or may fail to stick to the album page. We recommend that all adhesives be stored at 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius) or less with a relative humidity of 20 to 50 percent.

We do not recommend the use of liquid adhesive and sticker removers, because they generally are highly flammable and toxic, and may cause damage to your photographs. Some liquid adhesive removers also pose a health hazard.

Creative Memories papers have a pH of 7.0 to 9.5. When paper has a pH outside of this range, if can discolor and become brittle over time. The pH test is conducted using the cold extraction method. Cold extraction measures the actual pH of the paper after it has soaked in distilled water.

Lignin is a natural sustance found in wood pulp that gives wood its rigidity. Without lignin, a tree would not stand upright but would bend like rubber. Lignin causes paper products, such as old newspaper, to turn or become brittle over time.

Unlike acids, lignin does not migrate. It can, however, react with materials such as photographs. We do not recommend placing photographs in direct contact with memorabilia that contains lignin.

Buffered material has an alkaline reserve of at least 2 percent calcium carbonate and resists the effects of acid in the environment or in memorabilia.

The addition of a buffering agent to paper products helps neutralize acids that come in direct contact with the paper. A buffering agent also prevents acids from migrating to other areas of the page or onto photographs. Acids that come in direct contact with your photographs could accelerate the natural aging process and cause them to discolor or fade.

Our paper suppliers have changed their pulp bleaching processes away from elemental chlorine bleaching to more environmentally friendly methods. They have changed the bleaching process also to safeguard their workers’ safety.

The amount of acid in hand-oil is so minute that the buffering in our papers will easily neutralize it.

Our Photo Mounting Paper is not optimized to absorb inkjet inks. You may, however, use most Creative Memories Photo Mounting Papers in a laser printer or photocopier. It will act just like any other copier paper.

The Creative Memories definition of acid-free states: Because acid damages photographs and memorabilia, pages and decorative items in your albums should be acid-free. Photo-safe material has a lab-tested pH between 7.0 and 9.5.

Creative Memories paper is tested for pH using the cold extraction method, which involves a lengthy process which measures the pH of the entire paper. pH pens test the acidity of paper products at the surface only. These types of pens can be easily misinterpreted or inaccurate as they test only the surface of a material which can be easily corrupted by hand oils, etc. To provide more accurate readings, pH pens must be used only on white, uncoated paper.

Creative Memories incorporates mill waste into its paper products. Post-consumer waste is not used, because it may contain materials that are not photo-safe.

Yes. All Creative Memories paper products are recyclable. However, some municipalities may not accept metallic paper.

All Creative Memories photo mounting adhesives conform to the international photo-safety standard ISO 18902. These adhesives are permanent, nontoxic, and pass the Photographic Activity Test (PAT).

We do not recommend using the Precision Point Adhesive with vellum, newsprint, or other light-weight paper.

We recommend using liquid soap immediately to remove the Precision Point Adhesive. If the adhesive is allowed to dry, it may not be removable.

Some consumer tapes, glue sticks, and liquid adhesives are not permanent or may react with photographs and cause them to deteriorate. Some of these adhesives contain acids and other materials, such as plasticizers or softening agents, which can migrate onto a photograph and cause discoloration, fading, and brittleness.

Products that contain sulfur, such as rubber cement, do not pass the Photographic Activity Test (PAT), which is one of several tests we use to ensure that all of our photo mounting adhesive products are photo-safe. Sulfur-containing products emit fumes that are harmful to photographs and will accelerate their natural aging process. Because the safety of your photographs is our first concern, no Creative Memories products contain sulfur.

There is no way to sharpen the Creative Memories cutting tools. All of our cropping tools were developed using high-quality materials. However, over time the blades will become dull and require replacement.

The typical number of cuts each tool will make depends on the type of paper and the frequency of use. The following are our estimates for the number of cuts each tool will make before needing to be replaced.

The Custom Cutting System Mat may become warped if exposed to high temperatures. If your mat becomes warped, we recommend purchasing a replacement mat through your Creative Memories Consultant.

Other supplies do not use all the same definitions, test methods, and specifications that Creative Memories uses. In some cases, vendors rely on the manufacturer’s test, rather than running their own tests. Creative Memories, on the other hand, has even required manufacturers to reformulate their products to meet our stringent specifications. Consequently, these pens generally exceed the performance of other pens in the market.

All Creative Memories journaling pens are fade-resistant and bleed-resistant and meet ISO 18902 standards. These tests ensure that journaling will not change significantly when exposed to direct sunlight for one year or when submerged in water for one day. Pens have a shelf life of at least one year and will continue to perform even if accidentally left outside. The color remains consistent over time. In addition, all pens meet applicable safety standards, including ISO 11540, which requires pens to be safe for children.

Although the exact Library of Congress test methods are proprietary, Creative Memories does use similar fade, bleed, and permanence specifications for our journaling pens, and you can be assured of their longevity. However, as far as we know, the Library of Congress does not currently use Creative Memories pens. They obtain pigmented inks for security marking from the Government Printing Office. They then provide these inks only to museums, libraries, archives, and historical societies. We, on the other hand, make our pens and other products widely available for all customers to use in their scrapbooks and photo albums.

We test all products as closely as possible to the final application. Consequently, we specify the color of pens as written samples on Creative Memories White Scrapbook Pages. We also test pen color on other album page colors. All pen samples are produced with our Hutt pen tester, which works like a very expensive, but precisely controlled Spirograph®.

The Technology Center only tests our pens for use with our album pages and photo-mounting papers, so we cannot guarantee the long-term performance of the pens when used in conjunction with other materials.

We recommend testing the pens on a small swatch of the fabric and washing the test material to ensure overall performance. Some fabrics may contain additives that repel stains and ink, which would affect the permanence of Creative Memories pens.

Using a No. 2 graphite pencil to journal on your Creative Memories album page in an acceptable practice. The graphite used in these types of pencils is made of an inert substance and does not contain any materials that may damage your photographs.

However, since pencil lead is erasable, we would not recommend using a pencil for final journaling. Rather, we suggest the use of a pencil to develop a “rough draft” of your journaling to follow by the use of a Creative Memories pen to write over the original markings. The Pick-Up Square or a traditional white eraser can then be used to lift the pencil markings from the page once the pen ink has been allowed to dry. This method is not suggested for use with Precious Elements Metallic Pens.

The primary difficulty with developing a white pen is that white, pigmented ink tends to be less stable and consequently may not have the required shelf life. White also tends to look very similar to silver on our black pages.

The fine tip of the Dual-Tip Pen will write at least 600 meters under controlled conditions. The round tip will write at least 200. The Precious Elements Fine-Tip Pens will write for 300 yards or three football fields.

To remove ink deposits on the templates, we recommend washing them with soapy water. If a stain persists, you can try using over-the-counter isopropyl alcohol. We recommend that you rinse/clean off residual amounts of either when finished cleaning, and then dry the template before re-using.