Paper watch reaches fever pitch

Last Sunday saw the culmination of Emma O'Donovan's light bulb moment, the Paper Watch Project.

 

After much hard work and calling in favours from a bunch of already over worked illustrators, the auction came to a frenzied close with OVER £3000 raised for Breast Cancer Care.

The bids for Mark Frudd's Rocket watch soared in 

It was an amazing project to be part of and the end certainly didn't disappoint.

Sharon Langdon's beautifully colourful watch

The pace gathered momentum in the dying seconds of each individual auction, with bids flying in at the last minute and there were some 'heart-stopping- moments when the bidding wars started.

Mousaraja on his travels

The 88 auctions closed between 7pm and 8pm and I watched each and every auction finish, completely staggered by the generosity of you bidders, but not surprised, as these watches were worth every penny.

Mark Chambers fabulous books with his Stinky & Jinks watch

It was incredible to be involved and even though I was sat at home on my own, it was super exciting to watch the bids literally double and in some cases quadruple at the end of the auction.

Chris Mould's watch fetched over £200 for charity

Emma and I were frantically tweeting in one last ditch attempt at pulling in a few final bids (I apologise now for the cheesy rhymes and dodgy puns, they were all my doing!)

Shaun Tan's Eric watch fetched the highest bid of £266

In the final stages, we had offers of extra freebies from some of our illustrator friends, including a signed copy of Alex T Smith's latest book

Wayne Blackhurst's original artwork, Benji Davies's Mousaraja designed envelope and Holly Suplice's gorgeous guinea pig watercolour, to mention but a few.

Holly's dancing guinea pig watercolour

Some fun facts from the final auction:

• We had re-tweets from the Great British Bake Off winner, Frances Quinn and Gail Porter
• Two of the watches pulled in over £200 each!
• We were featured on over 30 blogs, including Nosy Crow
• The Guardian Life and Style promoted our project 
• We hit the big time and were papped for the local paper, interviewed by BBC Radio Surrey and made it into The Bookseller

If you wish to donate, you still can, via Templar's Just Giving page

Take a moment to re-live all 88 watches and remind yourselves of the time and effort put into each watch by those lovely illustrator folk.