Category: Preserve your Art, Photograph or Document

Your college diploma will most likely be one of the most valuable documents you will ever earn throughout your life. Have you ever thought about what would happen if you lost your diploma?
Either through an office move or a disaster such as a fire or flood, a college diploma along with other valuable documents can easily be destroyed. After all, it is only paper, but it represents so much! If this has happened to you, consider using the following tip to obtain a replacement diploma.
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Many people choose to "float" mount a watercolor or other artwork so that it is suspended within in the window of a mat and the paper's raw edges are visible. This creates a very professional and unique presentation that showcases the original nature of your piece. It is appropriate for artwork such as watercolors that are created on a heavy weight paper and will not be damaged by mounting from the back-side of the art.
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Since the beginning of civilization, art has served humans with a decorative purpose and/or a special link to their past. Over the course of centuries, or even just a few years in adverse conditions, art can become discolored or damaged from many different factors including: humidity, improper cleaning, temperature, careless handling, poor storage conditions, previous clumsy restoration, dirt, fire, flood or even vandalism.
Protect your artwork from the very beginning! Here are some tips on how to do s ...
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One of paper's biggest enemies is acid. Acid makes paper weak and brittle and can lead to discoloration, deterioration and irreversible damage. Other factors that affect the life of paper materials include: the manufacturing process, paper components and inks that are applied to the paper. It is important that a safe environment be created to keep these elements from destroying your documents. To protect and preserve your historical and family documents, there are steps you can take to e ...
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Damage Caused by Matboard
When framing and matting a document or piece of art it is important to consider the value of the object being framed, and whether the piece is going to be purely decorative or if preservation is important
For decorative framing, there are many matting options available to give your piece that special touch. Some of these options include: using textured mats, such as suede, leather, or linen & fabric. Selecting a mat with a different colored core, or using a metallic col ...
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Once you finally earn your long-awaited college or university diploma, don't let it sit in a drawer or stay all rolled up in a tube. After all, even the tube or folder that you may use for storage is likely not acid-free - and will, in and of itself, contribute to damage over time. There are three options for showcasing your diploma. A plaque, lamination or custom framing are the choices. The safe and best choice for your diploma is custom framing.
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Below are a few guidelines that if followed will help you maintain the beauty and value of your framed artwork or document:
To prevent light damage, expose the art to the least amount of light possible, as direct light can cause colors to fade, change, darken or to disappear. Light damage takes away from the beauty of a piece and can lessen its monetary value significantly if the conditions are not controlled.
Steps to prevent light damage include: never aiming artificial lights directly at ...
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What are the most damaging elements to a framed document?
Your artwork is vulnerable to damage from many different sources, below are the descriptions of some of the most pervasive causes of deterioration, which include: moisture, insects, acids and light.
Moisture Damage
Any framed document or piece of work is vulnerable to damage if moisture from the air is absorbed into the paper causing the paper to warp, or encourage the growth of mol ...
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If you are planning to store your artwork, there are several ways to safely store and preserve the work. Instead of rolling up your document or print and placing it in a poster tube, valuable pieces should be kept flat to avoid causing wrinkles, folds, deterioration, and other types of damage that can occur while storing a rolled piece for a long period. Listed below are some ways to properly protect your artwork for long- or s ...
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What generally comes to mind during the hot months of summer are beaches, swimming, barbeques, picnics, vacation ... what we don't like to think about are the tropical storms, flooding, mud slides, hurricanes, earthquakes and other various catastrophic events that happen throughout the world. I, myself, have been fortunate enough to never have gone through such an occurrence, but those who have seem to explain that their heartache is not specifically because of their car, their house, their ravaged pr ...
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