Scrapbooking glossary

Our glossary contains a few of the more common scrapbooking terms, it is by no means exhaustive. Hopefully it will help you with some of those terms that are unfamiliar to you.

•	Acid	-	Chemical substance with a pH less than 7.0. Acids can react with photographs, paper memorabilia, and scrapbook products causing corrosion, discoloration, brittleness or other problems, and hence shortening their life span.
•	Acid free	-	Material with a pH of 7 or above indicating that the material contains no acid for chemical reactions.
•	Adhesive	-	A substance allowing two or more surfaces to be stuck to each other. Can come in liquid, paste or solid form.
•	Alkali, alkaline	-	Chemical substance that has a pH of 7 or above. It can be added to materials containing acid to neutralize the acid. Alkaline paper is preferable to acidic paper, but there are other paper qualities that can also be taken into consideration.
•	Archival	-	A material or article is kept for long term retention, for example in an archive. Many companies place "archival" on products to imply permanence, durability, or chemical stability, meaning it could safely be used for preservation purposes. However, currently the various organizations that produce, sell, or use archival materials have not agreed on one standard definition or a quantifiable method for verifying a material's archival properties.
•	Binders board	-	Thick paperboard used to add stiffness to book bindings, boxes, photo albums, scrapbook binders, etc. Acid free and lignin free binders board is available, but most have high lignin content.
•	Bleed	-	The migration of ink or adhesive through or across the surface of the material to which it has been applied. This can happen either immediately upon application or over a long time.
•	Bleed-proof	-	Adhesive, ink or colorant that will not go through to the reversed surface of the material to which it is applied. This term can also been used to describe specially treated or coated papers that prevent liquids from soaking in or going through to the opposite side.
•	Bleed-through	-	When an adhesive or colorant goes through and becomes visible and/or tacky on the reverse surface of the paper or other surface to which it was applied. Results are dependent on variables such as thickness of the paper or surface and the amount adhesive or colorant applied.
•	Blocking	-	When two materials unintentionally stick together, for example when the top layer of a photograph adheres to some other surface such as a page protector, or another photograph.
•	Buffered	-	The addition of an alkaline to a material to control pH over an extended time. Common buffers for paper are magnesium carbonate and calcium carbonate. In addition to papers, buffering is sometimes used in adhesives and other materials where the manufacturer wants to control pH.
•	Colorant	-	Colorant is the dye or pigment used in crayons, inks, paints, etc.
•	Color dye coupler	-	A special chemical within photographic papers that reacts during photo-processing to create the image forming dyes. Over time, any unused color dye coupler may react with its surroundings to cause staining of the photograph.
•	Cropping	-	To "crop" a photo means to cut the photo, usually carried out to trim out excess background like sky and grass to allow more focus on the main subject of the picture.
•	Dark stability	-	A material's ability to resist degradation when stored in dark storage.
•	Dark storage	-	A photo or memorabilia storage environment where the materials are not regularly exposed to light.
•	Degradation	-	Process of a material breaking down from its current state or appearance to a lower state or into its individual components. For example, when paper yellows or becomes brittle, or when tape loses its tack and falls off.
•	Dry adhesive	-	Adhesive that does not require drying to be used. For example tapes that are always sticky and do not require wetting to be used.
•	Dye	-	Soluble, colored substance that is added to ink, paper, and textiles. Dye colors are generally less stable over the long term than pigment colors, but usually allow a greater color variety.
•	Fade proof	-	A color that does not fade over time when stored in the dark.
•	Fade resistant	-	A color that does not fade over time when stored in the dark.
•	Fading	-	The gradual loss or change of a color.Can occur when an item is exposed to light or other environmental factors.
•	Groundwood	-	Paper pulp created by mechanically grinding logs. This low cost pulp is chemically unstable and should be used only for short term paper needs such as newspapers and magazines.
•	Inert	-	Material that is stable and does not react with itself, the environment, or any other materials surrounding it. Always look for further information such as inert to what, under what conditions, and for how much time, etc.
•	Ink	-	A fluid, gel or paste material that contains coloring matter.
•	Lightfast	-	A colored material that resists fading by natural and/or artificial lighting.
•	Light stability	-	- A material's ability to resist degradation when exposed to light. Materials that are not light stable can become brittle, discolored, and react adversely with other materials.
•	Lignin	-	Paper that contains lignin, such as newsprint, will turn yellow quickly when exposed to light, heat, and humidity. Lignin will degrade paper causing discoloration and brittleness and degrade photographs causing staining, fading and spotting.
•	Lignin-free	-	Lignin-free paper must contain a maximum of 1% lignin.
•	Oozing	-	When an adhesive seeps out from under the edge of the item to which it was applied. With a wet adhesive, oozing can occur before it has dried; with a dry adhesive, oozing can occur over time such as with tapes or stickers where the adhesive seeps out from around the edges.
•	pH	-	Indicates the degree of acidity or alkalinity of a material.pH runs along a scale from 0-14. pH 7.0 is neutral, above 7.0 is alkaline (acid-free), and below 7.0 is acidic.
•	pH neutral	-	7.0 on the pH scale, meaning it is neither acidic nor alkaline. Pure water has a pH of 7.0 and is therefore considered pH neutral.
•	Photo-safe	-	Often used to imply that a product will not react adversely with photographs.
•	Pigment	-	Non-water soluble substance used to color ink, paper, and textiles. Generally more stable than dyes, but have a narrower color selection.
•	Pressure-sensitive adhesive	-	Adhesive that bonds by contact and pressure.
•	rag paper/board	-	Paper or board manufactured with a high content of long, cotton fibers.
•	Resin-coated paper (RC paper)	-	Photographic paper that has been coated with polyethylene on both sides.
•	Sheet protectors	-	These are made of plastic and slip over a finished album page. It is important that they be acid-free.
•	Substrate system	-	Refers to the surface to which the colorant is applied.
•	Water-proof/resistant	-	A materials ability to resist change, for example softening, migration, swelling, bleeding, or dissolving, when in direct contact with water.
•	Water-soluble	-	A material that can dissolve in water.
•	Wet adhesive	-	Adhesive that is applied while still in liquid form and when dried to solid achieves its full bond strength.
•	Wood pulp paper	-	Paper manufactured with wood pulp. Wood pulps are manufactured with a variety of lignin contents which means they have various levels of stability. Fully purified wood-pulp papers can as stable as cotton-pulp papers when used for preservation purposes, and are less expensive.