I write. A lot. Or at least I used to. I would write a "rant" just about every week on my msn community before everything moved over to my forum. I
wrote about everything from being fat to quitting smoking. Usually, I write like an adult - this is mostly because the only people who join my forum ARE
adults. So.. this version of my most recent "rant" is edited for all audiences. I did my best to change certain harsher non-curses to softer ones
like "crud" and "durn". If I missed any, I apologize.
I'm planning on adding a picture of said poster.. in said frame.. as soon as I can figure out where we last "hid" our digital camera (read: put down where it doesn't belong and forgot about). I also plan on keeping this thread updated as I find or trade for the pins I want. Once I've got enough to do a good framing on the poster, I'll be plotting and scheming with BulviT (we've already started.. lol) on how to get the poster and pins at my house combined with a to-be-purchased frame and matting at his house. Consider this.. a journaling of my insanity. LOL Oh, and once I've finished with this project, I plan on moving on to a Pirates one!
Okay, if you've seen my wants grouped up, you may be wondering how exactly I plan to display SO many pins. Well, I've got ideas. BIG ideas.
I hope to get my Star Tours grouping done first. See.. this set isn't about me or what I like.. this set is about my husband, Blue. He's a huge Disney freak as well as a Star Wars geek (original trilogy only, please.. lol) and he pined over the loss of the original Star Tours ride.
One day, approaching his birthday a year or two ago, Dreamy and I went into a little local thrift shop to waste time while he was off getting the tires replaced on the car. I should mention he hates garage sales, thrift shops, etc. I should also mention he's IMPOSSIBLE to shop for. So we're wandering up and down the aisles, picking through purses, books, clothing and a wide array of knick knacks people have gotten tired of seeing around their own houses and have released into the world to be adopted by someone else.
Restless and entirely unimpressed with the quality the place has to offer, I'd rounded to the far wall in record time. Scanning shelves with an expert eye, I bump into a hanging frame. Now.. the frame is absolute junk. One of those five dollar "portrait" sized jobs where you just know the entire five dollars about covers the cost of the glass. Super thin little gold colored plastic or metal "frame" does little more than a bottle of super-glue would do if you sealed the glass straight to the cardboard backing. Actually, it'd do better than this wobbling bit of tissue-paper thin framing. BUT! What's INSIDE! What's BEHIND! I've somehow had the luck to stumble across an original piece of Disney AND Star Wars history. Someone's cherished Star Tours poster. My heart stopped. I swear it did. Holding my breath, I lifted it off the pegboard wall and lowered it to the ground. As soon as the weight was off the "frame" it snapped into place vertically, then bowed out horizontally, where I was gripping it. Muttering breathless obscenities, I leant it carefully against a shelf and called for Dreamy. Casually. Half a dozen times.
The price tag said two dollars, if I remember properly.. and all I could think was "must buy before they realize what they've got". I had and have no idea how much the poster might be worth to a collector, it might be laughably less than two bucks but hey.. he'd love it and I got a gargantuan pane of glass, cheap! In all honesty, I knew that the poster - to him - would be worth so much more than two dollars or any number they might have asked that I could afford to part with. We carefully took it up to the register and paid, begging some used wrapping paper left over from a staff member's gifts to hide just what was in the frame. I couldn't breathe normally until they'd accepted my money and moved on. HAH! Now they couldn't change the price on me! Whispering to Dreamy repeatedly "I can't believe we found this.." I waited for Blue's return.
I hid that durned thing for a full week before giving it to him - long before his birthday. I couldn't take the suspense, I needed to know if he felt as strongly about it as I thought he might. Still in the junk frame, still LOPSIDED in the junk frame, with the cardboard backer showing around it, I presented it to him. He looked at me like he'd never gotten a better present in his life. Like I'd given his childhood self a brand new puppy.
The poster is still in that cruddy junk frame. Still lopsided. Still has the cardboard backing showing behind it. It's hanging in our living room, across the wall from our tv, right over the chair I sit in. We talked, at first, about saving up to get it framed. You know. REALLY framed. So far, we haven't gotten around to it. Life goes on, you lose track of your little goals for bigger ones. I got into pins right before our anniversary trip to Disneyland. Since we were spending so much on the trip when we shouldn't rightfully go, our gifts to each other were simple. Blue bought us each a pin when we went to the Disney Store to pick up the traders we would be taking. I would later trade pins at the park to get one for Dreamy and another for Blue. One of the hardest requirements of shopping for Blue is he demands no money be spent on him. This time, I managed to get around it. I found a perfect little Cutie Mickey as Jack Sparrow. Looks just like Blue when he dresses up for the Ren Faire. He pinned it to his collar and wore it to our special little dinner. He smiled constantly. We put the pin on Dreamy's lanyard till we got home because he REALLY isn't into pins and didn't know what to do with it.
So, after our recent (and final, for a while) trip to Disneyland, when we came home sad about having had to say goodbye to our "second home" and doubly morose about having had to say goodbye to our dear BulviT, I could only look on the poster with a heavy heart. I sorted my pins, got them added to my list on PinPics, and put the box away.
Well.. sort of.
My lanyard, now bare, is still on my desk with only BulviT's gift still attached to it. On the other side of my desk sits my pin box (a Jelly Belly anniversary tin) on the lower level of a cat tower. Don't ask. I have little room left on my desk. Ahem. Every day I see BulviT online and we chat about pins for a while.. and it feels nice. Then I go out to the living room and land in my chair.. and there's Star Tours above me, nicely placed in my field of vision. Lopsided.. Wobbly.. With the cardboard backer showing around the edges..
I think to myself "I wonder if there's such a thing as Star Tours pins.." and decide when I get up next time, I'll sit at my computer and look that up. Since I have the memory of a dim goldfish, this happens several thousand times a day. Eventually, the thought manages to stick long enough for me to get to my computer and go a-huntin' on PP. As I'm flipping through the designs, reconnecting with the old fashioned buttons and pins of my youth, the seedling of thought suddenly explodes in a massive explosion of growth. I know EXACTLY what I'll do! I'll collect some of the Star Tours pins and buttons we grew up with.. I'll save up some money... take the poster down... and I'll get it framed professionally! UV blocker! Airtight seal! Whatever it is they do with paper and ink goods to make them last longer! YES! And I'll have them put some pins in with it! All of it beautifully matted and pleasing to the soul! Brilliant! As I collect more pins, I can make little shadow boxes or moderately sized framed sets with them, group the whole lot together! Excellent! WOOHOO! Mission Star Tours!
...and then I remember just how many pins I have. Just how many traders (and what quality) I have. The thing is.. I know it can be done! I've seen the threads. I've watched collections grow, expand, take on a life of their own, wondered just what my collection would become. Now I know. Walt once said that we should always remember "it all started with a mouse"...
Well, this all started with a poster.
I'm planning on adding a picture of said poster.. in said frame.. as soon as I can figure out where we last "hid" our digital camera (read: put down where it doesn't belong and forgot about). I also plan on keeping this thread updated as I find or trade for the pins I want. Once I've got enough to do a good framing on the poster, I'll be plotting and scheming with BulviT (we've already started.. lol) on how to get the poster and pins at my house combined with a to-be-purchased frame and matting at his house. Consider this.. a journaling of my insanity. LOL Oh, and once I've finished with this project, I plan on moving on to a Pirates one!
Okay, if you've seen my wants grouped up, you may be wondering how exactly I plan to display SO many pins. Well, I've got ideas. BIG ideas.
I hope to get my Star Tours grouping done first. See.. this set isn't about me or what I like.. this set is about my husband, Blue. He's a huge Disney freak as well as a Star Wars geek (original trilogy only, please.. lol) and he pined over the loss of the original Star Tours ride.
One day, approaching his birthday a year or two ago, Dreamy and I went into a little local thrift shop to waste time while he was off getting the tires replaced on the car. I should mention he hates garage sales, thrift shops, etc. I should also mention he's IMPOSSIBLE to shop for. So we're wandering up and down the aisles, picking through purses, books, clothing and a wide array of knick knacks people have gotten tired of seeing around their own houses and have released into the world to be adopted by someone else.
Restless and entirely unimpressed with the quality the place has to offer, I'd rounded to the far wall in record time. Scanning shelves with an expert eye, I bump into a hanging frame. Now.. the frame is absolute junk. One of those five dollar "portrait" sized jobs where you just know the entire five dollars about covers the cost of the glass. Super thin little gold colored plastic or metal "frame" does little more than a bottle of super-glue would do if you sealed the glass straight to the cardboard backing. Actually, it'd do better than this wobbling bit of tissue-paper thin framing. BUT! What's INSIDE! What's BEHIND! I've somehow had the luck to stumble across an original piece of Disney AND Star Wars history. Someone's cherished Star Tours poster. My heart stopped. I swear it did. Holding my breath, I lifted it off the pegboard wall and lowered it to the ground. As soon as the weight was off the "frame" it snapped into place vertically, then bowed out horizontally, where I was gripping it. Muttering breathless obscenities, I leant it carefully against a shelf and called for Dreamy. Casually. Half a dozen times.
The price tag said two dollars, if I remember properly.. and all I could think was "must buy before they realize what they've got". I had and have no idea how much the poster might be worth to a collector, it might be laughably less than two bucks but hey.. he'd love it and I got a gargantuan pane of glass, cheap! In all honesty, I knew that the poster - to him - would be worth so much more than two dollars or any number they might have asked that I could afford to part with. We carefully took it up to the register and paid, begging some used wrapping paper left over from a staff member's gifts to hide just what was in the frame. I couldn't breathe normally until they'd accepted my money and moved on. HAH! Now they couldn't change the price on me! Whispering to Dreamy repeatedly "I can't believe we found this.." I waited for Blue's return.
I hid that durned thing for a full week before giving it to him - long before his birthday. I couldn't take the suspense, I needed to know if he felt as strongly about it as I thought he might. Still in the junk frame, still LOPSIDED in the junk frame, with the cardboard backer showing around it, I presented it to him. He looked at me like he'd never gotten a better present in his life. Like I'd given his childhood self a brand new puppy.
The poster is still in that cruddy junk frame. Still lopsided. Still has the cardboard backing showing behind it. It's hanging in our living room, across the wall from our tv, right over the chair I sit in. We talked, at first, about saving up to get it framed. You know. REALLY framed. So far, we haven't gotten around to it. Life goes on, you lose track of your little goals for bigger ones. I got into pins right before our anniversary trip to Disneyland. Since we were spending so much on the trip when we shouldn't rightfully go, our gifts to each other were simple. Blue bought us each a pin when we went to the Disney Store to pick up the traders we would be taking. I would later trade pins at the park to get one for Dreamy and another for Blue. One of the hardest requirements of shopping for Blue is he demands no money be spent on him. This time, I managed to get around it. I found a perfect little Cutie Mickey as Jack Sparrow. Looks just like Blue when he dresses up for the Ren Faire. He pinned it to his collar and wore it to our special little dinner. He smiled constantly. We put the pin on Dreamy's lanyard till we got home because he REALLY isn't into pins and didn't know what to do with it.
So, after our recent (and final, for a while) trip to Disneyland, when we came home sad about having had to say goodbye to our "second home" and doubly morose about having had to say goodbye to our dear BulviT, I could only look on the poster with a heavy heart. I sorted my pins, got them added to my list on PinPics, and put the box away.
Well.. sort of.
My lanyard, now bare, is still on my desk with only BulviT's gift still attached to it. On the other side of my desk sits my pin box (a Jelly Belly anniversary tin) on the lower level of a cat tower. Don't ask. I have little room left on my desk. Ahem. Every day I see BulviT online and we chat about pins for a while.. and it feels nice. Then I go out to the living room and land in my chair.. and there's Star Tours above me, nicely placed in my field of vision. Lopsided.. Wobbly.. With the cardboard backer showing around the edges..
I think to myself "I wonder if there's such a thing as Star Tours pins.." and decide when I get up next time, I'll sit at my computer and look that up. Since I have the memory of a dim goldfish, this happens several thousand times a day. Eventually, the thought manages to stick long enough for me to get to my computer and go a-huntin' on PP. As I'm flipping through the designs, reconnecting with the old fashioned buttons and pins of my youth, the seedling of thought suddenly explodes in a massive explosion of growth. I know EXACTLY what I'll do! I'll collect some of the Star Tours pins and buttons we grew up with.. I'll save up some money... take the poster down... and I'll get it framed professionally! UV blocker! Airtight seal! Whatever it is they do with paper and ink goods to make them last longer! YES! And I'll have them put some pins in with it! All of it beautifully matted and pleasing to the soul! Brilliant! As I collect more pins, I can make little shadow boxes or moderately sized framed sets with them, group the whole lot together! Excellent! WOOHOO! Mission Star Tours!
...and then I remember just how many pins I have. Just how many traders (and what quality) I have. The thing is.. I know it can be done! I've seen the threads. I've watched collections grow, expand, take on a life of their own, wondered just what my collection would become. Now I know. Walt once said that we should always remember "it all started with a mouse"...
Well, this all started with a poster.
email: 
