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Butterfly Art to Save the Species and the Environment.
All butterflies are real and come from butterfly farms and ranching projects in South America, Africa, and South East Asia. These farms provide the indigenous people of the region with an excellent source of income and prevent them from destroying the rainforest to clear land for raising cattle and logging. Eggs laid on leaves in the wild are collected and hatch on the farm. In the wild approximately 5 % survive to adulthood, but on the farms the survival rate is 80%. Habitat protection also becomes important because the butterflies will only eat certain plants from their habitat, so these plants are also collected and grow inside the farm. The majority of females are released back into the wild to lay their eggs in the rainforest, that might otherwise, have been destroyed. The butterflies are not killed but allowed to live out their natural life cycle, often only a few weeks. When they die, their bodies are collected and carefully wrapped and shipped to collector and artist all over the world. Without this effort, in a country like Peru with 3700 species, many butterflies would eventually become extinct.
Document Restoration with Vacuum Freeze Drying
Floods, storms, and fires can all cause water damage in your home or place of business
Because items such as sensitive documents, books, heirlooms and other keepsake are often of great value, the ability to preserve or restore them is important. In many cases they can mean just as much to someone as the damage to the structures and premises themselves.
Freeze drying is a process by which the material is frozen, and then dehydrated by sublimation. Sublimation is the process by which contained water passes from a frozen to a gaseous state. Frozen material is placed into a vacuum chamber where the freeze-drying process takes place. This process was developed during World War II to aid in supplying dried blood (plasma) and antibiotics to the troops overseas.
The items to be restored by freeze drying are frozen solid. This maintains their integrity, their shape and form. Other forms of drying under vacuum take more time and allows liquid to remain until evaporated. Inks and dyes can still run, and printed pages can still distort, form mildew and rot. The time needed to completely dry material varies according to the thickness of volume, type of paper and the degree of saturation. Vacuum freeze drying is noninvasive.
It is important to get the materials to us as soon as possible, so we can get them into the freezer. This stops further deterioration, especially from ink running and mildew. Do not move wet material any more than necessary. Leave the material in the original containers if possible. Pick up and delivery are available.
Detailed technical information on the freeze drying process known as lyophilization available by request.
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