From your grandmother’s wedding dress to your great uncle’s pocket watch, family heirlooms are sentimental pieces that are worth so much more than their monetary value. Instead of leaving these family treasures sitting in the attic, collecting dust and forgotten, there are many ways to preserve your family heirlooms.
The Importance of Family Heirlooms
Family heirlooms are more than just old objects. They are special items that someone in your family thought were important enough to pass down.
There are many reasons family heirlooms are so important:
- They come with stories – beyond the objects themselves, these pieces are often accompanied by interesting stories that can teach you about your family heritage.
- Your loved ones won’t be around forever –having a handmade quilt or other handmade item is a nice reminder of how much that person loved you.
- Family heirlooms are meant to be passed along— sentimental value often increases with time as objects are passed down to successive generations.
- Items come back in style- you never know when an item such as art or jewelry will make a comeback.
- Value can increase – If the object is not sentimental, you could sell it later on. As long as you store the family heirloom properly, it could increase in monetary value over time.
- Family mementos are unique—once they are damaged or lost they could be gone forever. This is why preserving family heirlooms is so important.
What To Do With Family Heirlooms
Instead of keeping these items in old boxes that could cause damage over time, there are plenty of ways to save family heirlooms and display them. As a professional framing shop in South Florida, we have many ideas on what to do with family heirlooms and how to preserve these family treasures.
Frame it
Photos, letters, certificates, recipe cards, and other paper-based items can easily become damaged over time, but these items can often mean the most. Framing family heirlooms can often help preserve them. Our custom framing services in Boca Raton can not only help to preserve these items, they can also enable you to display them proudly around your home.
Create A Shadow Box
There are many ways to preserve family heirlooms in a shadowbox. You can put similar items together such as a collection that has been added to by family members for generations. Another option is to create a family heirloom shadow box that only holds items from a particular family member, such as a father or grandfather’s hand-tied fishing flies or tools. A framing consultant can help you figure out the best way to arrange and frame the objects.
Preserve Clothes or Scarves
Clothes are a great item to pass down, especially a wedding dress or christening gown, but without proper care, they can easily get holes, sun damage, or acid damage, especially if stored in a cardboard box. There are several ways to go about saving them. Place the items in an acid-free storage container that is waterproof and store it away from the sun’s harmful rays. You could also pick out a few special items and get them framed with acid-free matting under UV-protective glass.
Make Notes
Along with preserving family heirlooms, you want to save the stories that go along with them. Add a notecard or typed paper to the back of the frame with the story that goes along with the item. Even better, have the stories related to the item written down by the family member and framed alongside the item.
Give As A Gift
Family heirlooms and mementos are meant to be passed down and these gifts can often be the most meaningful.
Use Only The Best Materials
If you are going to have your family heirlooms framed, you should make sure that you use professional framing. The frames you find at your local superstore may not have acid-free mats or UV-protective glass to protect from sun damage or keep out moisture, so, you could find your items become damaged even if they are framed.
At Rosenbaum Framing, we understand just how important your family heirlooms are. That is why we treat every item that enters our shop like our own. We want to help you keep them in good condition for many years and generations to come. Contact us today to learn more.
