On doing some Crucibling* with Armitage in July! (*not a real word)

Wow! Is this a hot time to be an Armitage Admirer or what!

I must admit I’ve been keeping a lukewarm finger on the RA pulse as I focus my attention on RL stuff, but good friends have kept me in the loop and made sure I knew the basic comings and goings, for which I am grateful.

After a period of “what the hell’s up Armitage?” and me moaning constantly that I demand good news,  it seems Richard has got his funky booty into gear and is spoiling us rotten!

Talk about watching a kettle boil, if only I had known it’d start raining Armitage projects the moment I step away for a while, I would have taken my sabbatical sooner 😉

What a time to be an Armitage Admirer and what a wonderful surprise at the Old Vic!

I hardly dared to dream Richard would sign up for a play in London (would have bet all my money on New York… and lost…).

The fact that it’s at the Old Vic makes it extra special.

When I flew in to London in December 2012 to see The Hobbit: AUJ we stayed at a hotel just down the street from the theatre.

Each time we passed I’d have the sudden impulse to drop on all fours and search the ground for imprints left by Armitage footsteps walk around the entrance breathing in the air, knowing it was where Richard had taken part in The 24 Hours Play.

Here I am, over a year later with my very own Willy Wonka winning tickets 🙂

The fact that it’s a Arthur Miller play is just icing on the AgzyM cake.

I have a thing for both Miller and the McCarthy period, so I plan on researching the heck out of the material, especially seeing as I probably won’t be coherent enough to actually go beyond the “OMG, that’s Richard Armitage standing there!” mode during the performance.

Although the announcement that Armitage had signed up for the project couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time (seriously, a heads-up, Richard!) and technically, I couldn’t afford to go, the fangirl inside of me was screaming that I could afford not to go!

So, after calculating, deliberating, concocting cunning plans that would make  Wile. E Coyote green with envy, and trying to explain to my nearest and dearest that missing out was not an option for this fangirl, here I am with tickets for the 7th and 8th of July.

BTW, if you’re going to the play on the same dates and would like to go for a celebratory drink or even just a Hello fellow Richardette! and a quick “our boy did good!” hug , please let me know, either in comments or via email at iwanttobeapinup [at ] wp.pl 🙂

I know of at least one RA fellow admirer *waves at H* who shall be there and I bet that anyone you ask seated in the first 2 rows will either be a fellow “well-wisher” or is accompanying someone who is!

I presume I’ll be boring the heck out of everyone here till July on the topic of The Crucible, but I’ve also been thinking much about fans who see their favorite actor in a theatre (a first for me) and the less than stellar behavior exhibited by die-hard fans during both Hiddleston and Cumberbatch’s performances which apparently ruined it for others.

Let’s leave all that for another day.

Today, I shall bask in the glory of Richard at the Old Vic 😉

PS. Hands up who needed to google what “crucible” meant… yup, me too!

See, we’re getting an education while admiring Richard!

Top of the Mornin’ to Ya, Liebste Freind! or Yay! I have my very own Pocket Shrine®

I can’t believe the scheduled  posts I prepared to go out during my hiatus are out already.

I’ll be updating you on some of the things I’ve been working on in my next post, but today I wanted to share with you a beautiful gift I got from a dear friend 🙂

On Friday I received a package that brightened up my day.

Dear Guylty has gifted me with:

The first John Thornton Pocket Shrine®!

In years to come my grandchildren will take it to The Antique Roadshow and it’ll be priced a staggering amount of money, but will never be worth as much as it does to me now!

In addition, I also received some Thornton’s chocolates that will NOT end up in my belly, but will grace my Shelves of Shame Admiration.

Heres how the shelves are shaping up:

This gift brightened up my day and reminds me just how special the friendships I’ve made among our little community of friends are!

Now, Frau Guylty, I have my thinking /creative cap on, but I doubt I’ll come up with anything quite so adorable 🙂

It’s Thorin’s everywhere!

Please be warned that there’s an abundance of very pretty stuff coming up, so if you’re only planning on window-shopping, please put paypal/credit card details out of reach…

This morning as I was preparing for work I felt an overwhelming need for Thorin to accompany me.

Some of you may remember that I had been fiddling about with some images of our majestic dwarf for the premiere of The Hobbit: AUJ and I ended up creating a Thorin/My Little Pony image (still not sure what prompted me…).

The T-shirt design has faded from washing, but it was still a very good Friday T-shirt option.

It got me thinking about how hand-made (with love) Thorin goodies fill in the gap in the dwarf merchandise that some of us are feeling.

Here are some objects that give me a serious case of grabby hands:

 I absolutely love this  Thorin Owlshield (OK, I did my best to come up with a funny name, but that’s all I’ve got…).

Anyway, this Thorin bookmark is a hoot!

If what you’d like Thorin to do is take an unexpected journey to your bed, then here’s your chance with adorable The Hobbit pillow plushies.

What I want to know is can the Thorin pillow plushy arms wrap all the way around someone… err.. I’m asking for a friend…

Talking of Thorin plushies, how beautiful is this hand-made felt version?

I always thought that his thunder brows were his most prominent feature, but there’s no mistaking this little guy.

Good news if he ever gets drunk, passes out and the company end up shaving his brows off as a joke…

Where there’s a dwarf, there’s always an excuse to party and check out The Hobbit Cake Kit (yup, that’s a thing!).

It includes 3 Hobbit figurines, luckily Thorin is one of them,  and a pop-up background.

If I had my choice of characters, apart from Oakey, I’d go for sassy Thranduil and Smaug, just to heat things up. Mmmm red velvet cake…

I hope the “pop-up” background makes the cake look like this:

How amazing is this! Meemawolf, my BDay’s in November 😉

meemawof10. #sthash.I0eXshIm.dpuf

Ain’t no party like a Tolkien party!

If you want something special (and support one of our own!) I suggest you check out Gisborne’s Boy/Sebababy’s artwork available at Red Bubble.

You can order his images on a variety of items, like T-shirts, phone cases and stickers.

And if your Armitage love isn’t limited to Thorin, how about getting greedy and ordering a Team Everyone design.

There’s also a mountain-high amount of adorable Hobbit/Thorin/Tolkien designs to check out at Red Bubble under the “Everything Thorin” tag.

Have you come across some delicious hand-made design?

If so, leave links in comments so we can all sit around and drool, then go rob a bank.

I will see you tomorrow for the weekly round-up!

My Tumblr Secret Valentine from Switzerland

I think this will be my last post pertaining to Valentine’s Week, but then I don’t know what the rules are, maybe it’ll turn into a month…

Apart from getting all luvie with RAworld Secret Valentine, I also took part in the Tumblr event.

Mid week I got a snazzy box from Switzerland  that sounded like there were jigsaw puzzles inside (perhaps a “stick a tail on Richard?).

Going down the stereotype route I opted for either Swiss chocolate or a cuckoo clock with Richard popping out on the hour.

I opened it up and it revealed a plethora of goodies, most of them hand-made, and you know how I feel about that!

Check out the lovely necklace that will enrich my Little Thorin collection:

Not to mention the knitted pouch (in my favorite colour!) and Thorin/Hobbit notebook:

And then there were dozens of chocolate hearts that will soon end up in my belly 🙂

Thank you Kiwitage!

And to all my blogging friends (readers, writers and lurkers), wouldn’t it be fun if we did something like this within our group for another occasion?

 

Feeling Crafty: Armitage Army Steampunk Card

I was feeling crafty today.

OK, not enough to actually finish the projects I had abandoned, but I needed something quick, easy and fun.

A while back I had come across this post at Epbot which involved metal tape (aluminum foil tape to be precise), black acrylic paint and plenty of beating and bashing.

Steampunk-licious? Sign me up!

Every so often I send out a card to my fellow Armitage Admirer as way of thanks for something tasty I received from them, but I always struggle to come up with a funky design, or I’m out of cardboard to print it on and so on, so I needed a fun card that was quick to make and purdy 😉

The biggest challenge was to find that aluminum foil tape.

After checking out some hardware shops (I know, it was scary…) it turned out that it’s used for fireplace isolation stuff, so you should find it in that section.

I also bought “drywall seam tape” which is a fancy name for adhesive mesh thingy and some foam letter stickers so I could lovingly create the “Armitage Army” sign.

Once I stuck the letters on, I started adding the seam tape and then covered the whole area with the aluminum tape.

The process was OK, word of advice though:

I felt the letters I had used were a bit too small, therefore when I started to push the tape down to make them more visible the tape punctured in a few places.

Maybe had they been a bit bigger, it would have been easier to really get into all the nooks and crannies and they would have been clearer (“m” was particularly challenging…).

I also think you should avoid having tape seams on the letters.

 

Having said that, the black acrylic paint luckily covered any rips and I did make my card plenty grimy!

I should add that I wasn’t using any professional tools, I was free-styling with the rivet holes and such, so maybe if I had a clay tool, it would have been easier.

Anyway, now I’m thinking about what else I could do:

cards? notebook covers? an image to stick in a frame and hang on the wall?

Have a wonderful day 🙂

That’s a No No, Richard!

A quick question for you today:

What would Richard have to do to make you go off him?

I remember the uproar when info spread that Richard was/is a smoker, not to mention the cat/dog person storm of 2013.

I’m eliminating any illegal activities for obvious reasons and asking about your specific pet peeves.

Here are mine:

A hairy back

No, just no.

There’s absolutely no excuse to have enough fuzz back there to knit your own sweater!

A foot fetish

Every time I see a picture of Quentin Tarantino (although I admire him as a filmmaker), my initial impulse is hide my feet under my bum, point my finger at him and yell No! Quentin, you’re not getting your grubby hands on my toes…

Feet are meant to hold up cute shoes and to get me from point A to B. The end.

Nail biting

Nice long fingers can catapult your thoughts to images of pleasure, but nails gnawed down to the cuticles make me shudder (no delight involved!).

I want piano-worthy fingers, not a piano has fallen on my fingers…

Lucky or unlucky, depending on how you look at it, for you Mr A, you don’t seem to posses any of the features that I would consider a deal-breaker, so I’ll just go on my merry fangirling way 😉

What are your fangirl/admirer/well-wisher deal-breakers?

Richard, a Fan by any other name…

I’ve come across a few notes here and there that said “Hello, I’m a new well-wisher!”.

Firstly, you are very welcome to our little group of friends 🙂

Secondly, I wanted to focus on the phrase “well-wisher” for a bit.

Richard has always mentioned his unease at having “fans” and in his last Christmas message (which I really wasn’t expecting and which brightened up a particularly grim day), he referred to his admirers as “well-wishers”.

Far be it for me to tell Richard what to feel (Oh, I would sooooo love that though…), but I’m just not feeling it.

Let’s take a look:

The Oxford Dictionary defines a well-wisher as:

“a person who desires happiness or success for another, or who expresses such a desire:

Hick received plenty of advice from well-wishers”

OK, not bad…

I certainly wish nothing but the best for Richard, root for him and contribute in my own measly way by buying cinema tickets, DVD and such, not to mention that shameful moment when I actually bought the Guy of Gisborne action figure that I’m way too ashamed to talk about just yet…

But what about passion, Richard?

Let’s take another word: fan

“a person who has a strong interest in or admiration for a particular sport, art form, or famous person:

 I’m a fan of this author”

That certainly fits me much better, although the origins come from “fanatic” and…well… I hope that’s not what I am just yet, but give it time!

Strong interest? Check!

Admiration? Double check with a cherry on top!

Of course showing interest and admiration is tied to hoping the object of our interest will thrive, after all, in part, their success is our joy.

Let’s crank it up a notch- how about fangirl:

“(informal) a female fan, especially one who is obsessive about comics, film, music, or science fiction:

your average fangirl, despite the implication of the name, is a grown-up”

Admirer:

“someone who has a particular regard for someone or something:

he was a great admirer of Henry James”

Good, not great, but allocatess with Armitage, so that’s a bonus and doesn’t have that strong stench of crazy…

Then there are the Richardettes, The Armitage Army and RArmy, but this refers to the whole group, a fandom, not an individual.

The point is, as has been proven by the already beyond boring discussion about the Cumberbitches, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and someone hooked on Richard Armitage, however they choose to identify themselves, will nevertheless show interest and support the man.

If you don’t mind, Richard, I’ll wish my colleagues well and I’ll stick to being your fan.

You can call me a crazy fan (no, seriously, preferably whisper it gently in my ear…) but if the Jimmy Choo fits then that’s who I am!

Pop the champagne, it’s my Blogiversary (for real this time…)

Today (well, technically it was Friday…) marks my 2nd Blogiversary and I intend to celebrate till my fingers turn pruney!

Who knew I’d last this long, 2 weeks would have been pushing it…

I always say that blogging is counted in either dog or Hollywood marriage years so in human terms I’ve been at it for about 14 years and it feel that way at times.

I stated out as an RA blog lurker in the summer of 2011, this blog which followed in January 2012,  was intended as a place where I’d gather materials I find on the net that could come in handy for my MA thesis in Fashion.

Fast-forward 2 years later and here I am blogging almost exclusively about Richard with an MA degree in Fandoms and Fanfiction…

This fangirling will take over your life if you’re not careful, but then I guess we wouldn’t want it any other way!

My blogiversary coincides with the annual round-up created my WP, so here’s I Want to be a Pin Up in 2013:

For the longest time I felt like the new Pin Up on the block, now it’s more like a goldfish in an Armitage pond 😉

Thank you so much for supporting my blog, I really appreciate it!

Some time spring it will hit the 500,000 clicks mark which it truly overwhelming and humbling.

Thank you for coming here for a giggle, for engaging and contributing with your comments.

I always say I seem to have the nicest, wittiest and possibly craziest readers and I couldn’t want it any other way.

I bet there are a few lurkers that fit that description well too and hopefully we get a chance to become familiar by my 3rd blogiversary.

I hope to meet up with a few other RA enthusiasts this December in London, fingers crossed.

It would be wonderful to watch Richard strolling the red carpet one last time to support the role of Thorin surrounded by my peeps.

I raise my glass to you Dear Friends, Na Zdrowie!

Armitage Weekly Round-Up Week 2

Here’s another weekly round-up of Richard Armitage/Hobbit/OT posts that caught my eye this week.

Thank you for stopping by last week, you can check out Week 1 here.

Arkie has been keeping an eye out for fanfiction that may interest you, so check it out.

What a perfect way to brave the cold, snuggled up with a good fanfic read.

Guylty wanders the wild with interesting posts that have appeared on Tumblr.

It’s a tough job but someone has to do it!

As always, if there are posts that you’d like to recommend or I have overlooked, please post them in comments either here or at the other two blogs.

We are still very much spReAding the love!

There’s £200 to snag for Richard’s JustGiving charities and you can make that happen by having your act of kindness noted by the end of February!

Frenzy takes it back to fandom basics! She suggests we start with I Saw Something Fine… and here are further thoughts

Richard goes the extra mile crosses the street for fans

Don’t step on Richard’s blue suede shoes

Behind the scenes DOS footage, keep it coming please!

Jazz and the Headbanger’s Ball with Thorin

Jonia celebrates her blogiversary. Congrats!

Sometimes it’s easiest to express it with an RA character

Does Richard wear Spanx (what? it’s a valid question!)

Philippa Boyens fangirls (amongst other things)

I guess Richard and the cast are still not done with NZ

Airport pics bug me, but maybe mostly because I don’t see such beauty on landing… and a further thought…

On blabbing about Tolkien. Me? I blab on Tolkien, food, gossip and anything else in between…

How big is big enough to be a sex symbol? (and yes, I’m talking about what you think I’m talking about…)

Morrighansmuse looks at Obsessions of a fan girl

OT: Words that soothe and harm

Baby it’s cold outside, don’t forget your cardigan!

Polar Vortex Shmortex- Richard will keep you warm.

Confession is good for the soul, so we Armitagettes must be angels…

And we must be some strong angels because that level of majestic fabooshness can kill a gal…

Possibly the most important interview with a cast member of The Hobbit!

The cat with the best taste in men…

Age with pride like Thorin and show those grey streaks with pride!

Obscura actually manages to make the Olympic Games interesting

I still thing Smaug needs mouthwash…

Zan’s back! Yay!

UPDATE:

Jazz tells it like it is!

Richard’s new project? I hope he gets his thespian on!

Perry digs up more on the subject here and there’s more here from RAC.

BccMee will forever be the queen of Armitage collective challenges and her whole blog is post after post of delicious goodies.

She’d encourage readers to suggest photos, quotes and such, and she’d whip up the most amazing graphics and fanvids.

Check out the fun Summertime fun challenge where she has two RA characters battle it out in the strangest categories.

I honesty struggle to recommend the BEST BccMee post, you should just start from the oldest post and make your way from there.

BccMee also creates  beautiful videos, like the one for Richard’s 41st B-day:

Check out the Tumblr Round-Up courtesy of Guylty and Arkie’s Fanfic Weekly Round-Up.

See you next week 🙂

May it be a Blogging 2014 and the dreaded resolutions!

As 2013 nears to an end it’s also time for some New Year’s resolutions (I can hear you groan…).

I hardly need to work hard at coming up with my RL resolutions as I seem to stick to the same ones year after year, decade after decade which makes me think that they might not work.

This year I shall focus on my plans for the blog and leave blogging reflection on 2013 for my blogiversary which is coming up very soon.

Here are some resolutions/plans/aims for the upcoming year for IWantToBeaPinUp:

Update my blogroll list on the right

I’ve been meaning to do this for some time, especially that there are so many amazing new blogs that deserve to be included.

Clean up old posts

Seeing that I’ve somehow managed to produced almost 600 posts this is going to be one heck of a RA thunder thighs mammoth task, but I want to have them in good condition on the off-chance someone might come across an old post and find it useful/amusing/annoying.

I need to go back, remove inactive links, upload photos and such, but perhaps I’ll leave that for the summer when I have more time to fiddle with stuff.

Complete the series of interviews with RA bloggers

I’ve had an idea to pick the brains (not physically mind…) of fellow RA bloggers who specialise in specific fields.

Although I had initially aimed to have this project completed in autumn, let’s shoot for spring.

By the way, a huge thanks to those who agreed to participate a few months ago, I didn’t manage to pull this off then, but I’ll be knocking on your email door again soon.

Come back to regular/scheduled posting

Although I very much doubt I’ll be able to swing daily posts, but I’d like to come back to Arty Farty Fridays.

I know it wasn’t everyones cup of tea, but I think it found a  nice little group of art enthusiasts and that inspired me to watch documentaries and try to come up with something interesting every week.

Supporting fellow Armitage Admirers

Whether it be supporting fellow bloggers, organising RA events, spreading the word etc.

Plan for FanstRAvaganza 5

I haven’t heard anything about the fifth edition of our annual RA celebration, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed and just in case I need to start storing those cream-of-the-crop ideas so I don’t have to panic come March that the RA ideas pantry is very bare.

From non-blog but very much RA related resolutions:

Attend a red carpet event and watch RA work his magic

This one’s a big dream of mine and I feel like the last instalment of The Hobbit may also be the last chance in a while to experience the exhilaration a fan/admirer/enthusiast/well-wisher can feel being part of something so cool.

It really is out of my hands, if Sir PJ brings the première to London this December I’ll do my best to be there, wearing my thermo undies and being an absolute embarrassment to those around me.

Hey, a girl can dream, right?

What are your resolution, both RA and RL related?