What to Do When a Scrapbook Gets Wet?

Having a flood or water damage in your home can be a disaster. Not only can it ruin floors, walls and furniture, it can damage important paperwork and books and memorabilia. And that includes your precious scrapbooks. Water can cause the inks and dyes of journal entries, digital photographs and decorative papers to bleed making them appear blurry or streaked. Wet paper becomes distorted or warped and some may even completely dissolve in water.

What to do when a scrapbook gets wet?

• Remove the pages from their page protectors.
• Remove, if possible, the photos from the pages.
• Dry out the photos and scrapbook pages. Avoid direct sunlight.
• Test any cleaning, flattening or other treatment on a less important print before applying the technique tot he rest of the album.
• If you don’t have the time to immediately dry out your pages, freeze them in order to prevent mold growth.

Let’s review these steps, and additional advice, in more detail.

Remove the pages from their page protectors

Once your scrapbook gets wet, mold can begin to grow in two or three days. Don’t try to dry your pages inside their page protector as they will hold the water inside. Remove the pages from their page protectors as soon as possible and carefully blot away the excess moisture. Don’t rub or scrub, just blot. Lay the papers flat on blotter paper or some other medium that is very good at absorbing moisture. You can use paper towels, but make sure that you stick to the plain white or unbleached ones, as printed towels may bleed onto the pages. Newspaper should also be avoided because the ink will transfer to the book. Don’t turn up the heat in order to dry out the pages faster, this may cause the mold to grow faster. Instead, place an oscillating fan in the room where the papers are drying, so that you can increase the air circulation and help them to try faster.

If your scrapbook doesn’t have pages in page protectors, but rather is more like a photo book, the best way is to place a sheet of absorbent paper between the wet pages and lay the book flat to dry. You don’t necessarily have to place blotter paper (or paper towels) between every page – just every 20 pages or so. As the blotter paper becomes saturated, you can change it every few hours.

Remove the photos from the pages

It may take two to three days for the photos to dry completely.

Damaged photographs for which there are no negatives should receive attention first.

Be gentle, don’t rush. Handle wet photos carefully. The surfaces may be fragile. Carefully remove the photographs from the scrapbook pages. If the photo is tearing, stop, and try to dry out the photo while attached to its page.

Gently rinse both sides of the photo in a bucket or sink of clear, cold water. Don’t rub the photos, and change the water frequently. Gently remove dirt and debris by blowing it off or shaking the photo gently. Do not try to blot or wipe it away, as this could cause the ink to smear, or you may scratch the surface of the photograph.

After removing the photos, dry them. The preferred method is to hang them on a line. Hang them from one corner, attached with only one clip. Gravity will cause the water to run down from the photo toward the point. This keeps the paper from warping as the water’s weight allows the top part to dry first, keeping downward pressure on the drying paper.

If you can’t hang them, lay them flat face-up on a clean absorbent material (blotting paper or paper towels). This way, however, they may be more prone to buckling and warping here and there. Should this happen, You could add weights to the tips of the photos to keep them down or flatten them once they are totally dry.

Do not put them in direct sunlight. Run a fan to circulate air over and around the items as they dry.

Additional tips for cleaning and drying photos

If you don’t have room to lay out your photos in a single layer, you can try putting wax paper in between each photo.

If any photos are stuck together, soak them for at least an hour in lukewarm water. Gently peel apart. You can also try freezing them as a bunch, wrapped in wax paper. During thawing, carefully peel the photos off one by one and let them air dry.

If the photos are smeared or drenched with a sticky or other liquid, clean off the liquid by soaking the photo in water and carefully drying it as described above.  Some liquids, like coffee, tea, grape juice, wine, and the like, may not come off very easily, however.

As the photos dry and images appear, take photos of the photographs. They may actually get worse as they dry, so you will at least have a photo image of the picture.

In this age of digital photography you probably have a digital copy of the photos used in your scrapbooks backed up and available. In that case, please keep in mind that your photos might be easier to replace than, for instance, the journaling or ephemera. You may want to focus your water damage rescue actions on those irreplaceable items first.

Freeze the pages and photos if there’s no time to dry them immediately

Ideally, your scrapbooks should be dried out as soon as possible. This way, they don’t have a chance to get moldy. Mold will normally grow on wet materials in about 48 hours (sometimes sooner) and will grow rapidly thereafter.  If, However, you don’t have the time to immediately dry the scrapbooks, the best thing to do is to place them (or the loose pages and photos) in a resealable plastic bag and put them in the freezer. This will kill any active mold and inhibits further growth, and thereby save the pages and photos from deteriorating any further.

Dry out other important paperwork

Marriage licenses, birth certificates, favorite books, letters, old tax returns and other paper-based items can usually be saved after getting wet. Again, the key is to remove the dampness as soon as possible, before mold sets in.

The simplest approach to salvaging water-damaged papers and books is to lay the damp items on blotter paper, which will absorb moisture. Paper towels are a good option, as long as you stick to the plain white ones without the fancy prints. Newspaper should also be avoided because its ink may run.

Saving your scrapbooks from dirty water

If the books have been in dirty flood water, you might need to rinse them clean before you begin the drying process. Gently rinse them in a sink or a bucket of cold, clean water. If you think that rinsing them in a bucket might damage them, you can also lay the paper on a flat surface and gently spray it with clean water as well. Be sure not to scrub the pages as doing so will tear the fibers. Loose, dry dirt can often be removed with a soft-bristled brush.

Get rid of that musty smell

When your books and papers have finished drying, they may still have a musty smell. In order to get rid of this, you can place them, propped open, in an open box and then put that in a different larger closed container – with an open box of baking soda. As long as the baking soda doesn’t touch the books, it will absorb the odor. Clean cat litter can also be used. This process may take a while.

Don’t use chemicals

Don’t try to clean your scrapbook pages and photos or prevent mold from growing on them by using chemical products. Using chemical “Quick cures”, such as spraying Lysol on your pages or cleaning them with bleach may cause additional or unforeseen damage. Also, they often don’t’ work.

If necessary, consult a professional

If nothing has worked and the photos or scrapbook pages are too important to let go you may try to consult a professional. Professional photography restoration services can be found through professional photographers, antique restoration professionals, and sometimes through colleges and universities.

How to prevent water damage from happening (again)

Store Your Books High

If you want to avoid your books being damaged by flooding in the future, you should do your best to keep them as high up as possible. Although they still might suffer from humidity damage, they will be a lot safer than if they were in boxes on the floor. If you can’t store them high, at least store your scrapbooks in a dry area, not in the basement or near water pipes.

If you want to make absolutely sure that your scrapbooks don’t get water damaged, store them in large plastic Ziploc bags or waterproof containers.

Digitize and Back Up

Digitize your scrapbook layouts. You can scan entire album pages if they fit on your scanner, so you can record captions or the arrangement of pictures on a page. In a pinch, snap pictures with your mobile device: close-ups of photographs and captions, and full-page images that at least capture how it’s laid out (even if at a lower resolution). 

Also, digitize the photos of which you only have a hard copy. Don’t forget to digitize your negatives as well.

Back up your photos (especially important ones such as baby photos or family history photos) regularly. There are different ways to do this: burn them on CDs, use cloud-based storage services (such as Google Drive or Dropbox), copy them to one or several external hard drives or memory cards. The most secure way of backing up your photos is to choose several methods simultaneously. Don’t rely on just one. Consider storing one copy of your photo cd’s or external hard drives in someone else’s house for extra security.