You might be wondering where exactly Amelia has been lately. Why she’s been so quiet. For a long time I have wanted to get her framed. She’s been through a lot and has a lot of wear and tear. I wanted to get her in a frame before anymore damage occurred. She is, technically, a collector’s item.
Last December, before Christmas, I took her into Michael’s, along with the Jim Henson/ Kermit Think Different poster and two NaNoWriMo posters, to be framed. They were having a 50% off sale, and I wanted something nice. And oh man were they helpful. We probably spent about an hour and half, choosing matting and frames. The NaNo posters were especially difficult, colorwise. It took 3 frame dept people to figure it out, with much debate. Finally, we had everything spec’d out and he started to write up the estimate. That is something he maybe should have done after the first poster, I could have saved us all a lot of time. The Think Different posters are 24 x 36, the NaNo posters 18 x 24, and really, that is quite large for a custom frame job. Each poster had a relatively inexpensive frame, but three levels of matting. It was so nice.It really made a difference.
When he added up the total for just Amelia, I almost passed out. I was expecting it to be less than that at 100%. At 50% it was ridunculously expensive. Let me put it this way, I could have framed all prints as planned, or I could have bought my husband a black MacBook with an extra gig of ram for Christmas with that kind of money. If I had that kind of money lying about. Which I did not.
I decided to go ahead and have Amelia framed. We tried reducing the cost by removing some of the matting, but it just looked so much better the way we planned it out. It hurt me to pay that much, believe me. It was extortion. I don’t even have Jim and Kermit on the wall because I couldn’t bare to have them look all naked and plain next to Amelia.
The picture does not do it justice. She really does look fabulous.
Amelia: Hey.. look at me!
Me: You look good.
Amelia: I look FANTASTIC. My posture has never been better. Can you hear me from behind the glass?
Me: Loud and clear.
Amelia: Sweet. Do you think you can wipe off that fingerprint in the lower right corner? I don’t want to look smudgy.
Me: I’m on it.
I had a very similar experience. Custom framing is way expensive. For that other stuff you wanted framed, poke around at your local Fred-Meyer-Canadian-equivalent. That $250 custom frame job? You can find something not quite as nice, but close enough, shrinkwrapped for like $30.
But Amelia does look sharp.
Love,
L.
amelia, you are gorgeous babe. 🙂
That’s an awesome poster, though. She looks brilliant.
custom framing is ridiculously expensive. My mother collects hunting prints (foxs, hounds and men in red coats astride horses) and often the framing was as expensive as the print!
Wow. She does indeed look fabulous. I’m an admirer of Pancho Barnes, myself. 🙂
I haven’t had anything custom framed in years…I have an autographed Phantom of the Opera poster that I had matted and framed with the ticket stub. And it’s just basic white matting…of course, it’s easy to match with black. 🙂
She really does look great, though.
I love getting stuff framed. I bought a beautiful cloth drawing of a hindu god when I was in Thailand, intending to get it framed and give to a friend (the one who introduced me & pamplemousse) – but once the
matting and frame was picked out – I wanted to keep it.
But it was intended for a FRIEND, and friends deserve beautiful gifts, especially friends who introduce me to the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with, right?
Then, in the space of about 3 months, the “friend” gave birth, sold her house and moved away from the city WITHOUT TELLING ME so I ended up keeping it.
I think about her every time I pass the frame in my hallway. Bad horrible thoughts, but still, she’s in my mind…. and she recently “requested” my facebook friendship and then has not bothered to reply to my emails. Bleh. At least I got a beautifully framed print and a hot loverman out of the “friendship”.
WOW she does look good. What is it about framing special photos/prints like that, that just sends giddy shivers down a spine?
**ahem** Guilty confession. When I saw your poster, I HAD TO HAVE IT. I went to ebay and impulse bought one. If I had money (like the money I didn’t have to buy this) I’d buy the Jackie Robinson one too. Can’t even imagine what the Muhammed Ali one costs. That doesn’t make me crazy or anything, does it? It’s not like I’m going to start dressing like you or something… maybe I should talk to my therapist…
She looks fabulous!