Restoring and preserving a paper art project- How do I do this?

June 11, 2014 4:19 PM

When I was a kid, my grandfather and I spent a lot of time working on a personalized monopoly type game. We made it out of cardboard, construction paper, elmer's glue, paint, and pen ink. It also is covered with stickers. Unfortunately, it is yellowing/faded/coming undone/moldy(?) and kinda gross. Who can I contact to have this fixed?

My grandfather died a few years ago. I would love to have this restored or redone and framed.

I am leaning towards some sort of restoration because I want to preserve my grandfather's handwriting. This is not a complex work of art or anything, this is more like if a person wanted to restore a little kid's art project they made in school.

posted by tweedle to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

See if there is a scrapbooking supply store near you. They often hold classes and might be able to put you in touch with someone that would take it on.
posted by tamitang at 4:49 PM on June 11, 2014

I'd wipe things gently, then scan them, and just lift off the handwriting off the scans, corrected so it's not faded, and print it as a new copy of the game. Or, just print the handwriting, and colour it or get someone to colour it as you did before.

Advantage being, you'll also be able to print an extra copy to play without worrying that you might damage it further.

Sidenote: I'm very keen on scanning things now, after having my folder, and only my folder of special-to-me handwritten letters and cards, get wet and moldy after the safe place for it turned out to be not so safe.
Paper and ink and glues tend to be... biodegradeable. And light sensitive. And all those things that mean they're mostly kind of temporary.
posted by Elysum at 5:52 PM on June 11, 2014

Could you post a photo of it? That would help in recommending how to handle it.
posted by haplesschild at 3:12 PM on June 12, 2014

Here's some pretty helpful conservation guides which give you some basics of issues encountered frequently, including mould. No idea where you are, so the suggestions for additional information/supplies etc might not be terribly helpful for you if you're outside Australia. But you could have a look for equivalents near you, try googling/phone book searches for things like restoration, conservation, etc. Should turn up something local for you!
posted by Athanassiel at 6:14 PM on June 12, 2014