The #RA50Auctions afterparty

The charity auctions for Richard Armitage’s 50th birthday ended almost two weeks ago and Guylty has already apprised us of the overwhelmingly wonderful result. The funds have been transferred to LOROS Hospice and all was long done and dusted when I arrived home from my holiday last Sunday. Once I walked through the door and glanced at the accumulated mail, I found that the fun wasn’t over by any means as my own haul from the auctions had already arrived! All bills and boring mail were thrown to one side as I unwrapped my little treasures.

I was extremely happy to receive the The Martian Invasion Of Earth cd from Nokisuu that I had won in the auction, accompanied by a very lovely hand-crafted card. I think it’s the first time I have ever received mail from Finland.

I had another envelope waiting for me from Guylty, which contained a lovely Richard Armitage special delivery tag from Kate that I had bought and plan to use as a bookmark and other small goodies were included as well, such as a few stickers and a lovely Urban and the Shed Crew shrine card…

I had also bought a textile collage with a quote from Uncle Vanya from Guylty’s fixed-price sale and I had bought that for a very specific reason. For about a year and a half I’ve treasured my Uncle Vanya programme booklet that most of the cast had signed for me at the stage door last year. It was sitting in a case and what I really wanted to do was frame those two pages with signatures. However, framing just the pictures with signatures seemed meaningless without mention of what play it is from. So, I had already planned to cut up the booklet and also use the title page but as it’s not that easy to find an (affordable) elongated narrow picture frame to fit 3 pages side by side, I knew I had to use something bigger in a standard size. This meant that I would have a huge gap in my planned picture frame and what to fill that with? Then the auctions came and when I saw the fixed-price items I finally knew what to do with that gap.

Today I found an old wooden frame in the attic with a background I had once painted dark red way back in the 1990s. I finally cut up the booklet and, in addition to the signed pages, I used the title page, my own ticket to the play and that textile quote collage to fill the frame. This is the end result and I’m quite pleased…

I may yet decide to get another frame because this one, along with the red background, looks a bit dated, but then again Dr. Astrov is all about wood, so it does seem somewhat fitting in a way. In any case, I’m very pleased to have that quote collage to complete my little framed Uncle Vanya collection! Now finally those signatures are not hidden away anymore.

So, yes, I’ve been having my own private #RA50Auctions afterparty and it’s been fun. I’m also already getting ideas for the Christmas auction, if there is to be one…

Party on seems a fitting sentimemt.