When I was in high school, I lost my class ring about 4 months after my parents gave it to me. I was helping my father dig and lay stone in a new leach bed, and thought for sure it was gone forever. But after he dumped a pile of stone later in the day, I was raking it out, looked down, and there it was, good as new!

I’ve also lost a diamond earring only to find it perched precariously on the edge of the shower drain…three days later.

And last but not least, I lost another earring of sentimental value while moving, don’t ask why I was wearing them during that, I don’t know. Well, my mother found about a month later in her car…but she wasn’t helping me move when I lost it!

One day, I was picking out earrings to wear and I thought “wouldn’t it be terrible if I lost them?”

I looked . . . and there is only one earring in my jewelry box. Don’t ask me how only one ended up in there but I was/am totally bummed out.

The hutch is gone, the room has been
re-carpeted, the attic has been cleaned, etc. etc.
No pencils. I hold out tender hope that if they ever move, I may find them. Tender, because after all these years, I doubt it.

I’ve also lost my driving glasses in the car, and found them in a spot I *know* I checked, after I asked the house-spirits or what-have-you for them back. That does help, sometimes.

My mother was ladling up soup for dinner. She set the ladle down, served the soup to two people. She came back into the kitchen and the ladle was gone. vanished. You could see the spot on the spoon rest where the ladle had been. She had only used it to scoop up those two bowls of soup.

Every time I use a ladle I laugh and wonder if it will be there when I get back.

We lost our marriage license on that same bookshelf in our previous apartment. (I should probably get rid of that bookshelf someday before it eats again.)

I haven’t tried this on photos, so I would be really careful, and check the pictures often to make sure the mixture isn’t reacting with the emulsion – it probably won’t on newer prints, but who knows what it might do on old photos or polaroids.

Alternatively, you could put the photos in an album with plastic sleeves and try what I do with used books that have a cigarette smell – put dryer sheets in between the pages and wrap the whole thing in a plastic bag for a few days.

I’ve also had success with putting smelly things into a plastic bag along with a Method fragrance disk (the grass-scented one seems to work fastest, but they all work eventually), just be careful not to let the fragrance disk come into contact with your object (i.e., put the disk into a paper envelope first) because there are volatile compounds in there (which make it work) that can damage paint and plastic if left touching.

You can accelerate all of the odor removal methods by adding mild heat (like from a sunny window).

Good luck with deodorizing your photos!

@ Mom of three: LOL! (I actually do use scrapbook paper — but for macro photography backdrops behind small items.)