Halestorm

    My favorite band is Halestorm. I have never in my life had a "favorite" band but I have loved the majority of the music they have put out and the love has persisted for years. That's usually when you can say you have a favorite something. I love the band so much I named my pony, Halestorm. He is a custom Stone pony created by Julie Brooks in 2011. I bought him from my good friend, Joan Yount. He’s a wonderful and fairly versatile little pony and is pretty fun to show. 

      Halestorm started his showing career with me in 2014. He’s really great at a wide variety of classes, though I have only ever had him in English equipment. I keep trying to get western tack that fits him, but it’s tricky. Maybe that will be my new goal for this year. I think I need to find classic scale tack, but I'm not totally sure. Anyway, could be a goal. You never can tell.

       Halestorm has brought in bunches of NAN cards, ribbons and rosettes. And did I mention he was fun to show? I mean, he’s a pony, so he has to get bonus fun points for that. Doesn't he?

Sometime last summer, during my wild purge of everything I own, I decided to sell Halestorm. I hadn’t really been showing him much and he mostly just sat on the shelf. When I mentioned it to Joan she said she would like to buy him back. So I sold him back to Joan and sold his tack and doll and didn’t think about him much anymore. It’s easier when you sell something you love to one of your best friends.

          Then a couple of weeks ago I was looking at one of Joan’s doll ads on MH$P (because I always look at her doll ads) and there was Halestorm. The little doll was riding bareback because Joan doesn’t have any pony sizes tack, but they sure looked cute together. I instantly missed my pony. So I asked Joan if she would sell him back to me because as soon as I saw him I had a longing for him to be back with me. She said she didn't have any pony sized tack and didn't really have time to make any at the moment so she would and that it was nice to “keep him in he family”. It’s true. 

       At almost exactly the same time as I was seeing Halestorm in Joan’s ad my friend Marci posted an older Braymere tack set that had been made to fit a Bouncer. I have an OF Bouncer sitting in a box, a deep love of Braymere tack and a tradeable skill. So I asked Marci if she would be interested in a trade and she happened to need a doll. Sometimes life just works out. I got even more excited when Marci said the tack would fit a Stone pony as well.

Perfect.

       Since Marci and I both work in schools, we both have February break this week, so we scheduled a pony play date. I went over to her house and brought her the new doll I made her and I brought Halestorm, who arrived on Tuesday. Just in time to go out and play! I think the set is an excellent fit on Halestorm and makes him look like a fancy hunter pony. I don't know why I think that, I just do. I show him as an Australian pony and it works. Anyway, I tried Marci's youth doll and a sales youth doll I had on hand. Neither was a good fit for the saddle. And I wanted everything to be as perfect as I could get it. So I pulled out a smaller doll when I got home and got ready to super-customize her. 

Still not a perfect fit, but I can make it work. I have never actually customized a doll specifically to fit a particular saddle and it has been an interesting build. First I pulled off her thighs and remade them a bit shorter but left her knee joint. I didn't like how it looked. The thighs ended up a bit too short and her knees were still not in the right place. So this morning I decided to take her all apart, again, and start over. 

         Here we have her boots/lower legs, sliced in the back and braced with a bit of wire so she can be in a proper heels down position. Then a knee/thigh wire was super glued into the top of the boots. The shape worked and now I was confident I could get the doll made in a way that would fit the saddle well. However I forgot to do the gluing after the legs were through the pelvis. Oops. So I cut the leg wire in the center and super glued it back together in a small medical tape wrap. I don't think the wire is actually back together, but it is firmly attached to the medical tape, which is also firmly closed. And that make her legs moved slightly more realistically. What a happy accident!

         Finally I got the thighs wrapped and the arms done. I think she looks fairly natural now. Other than the fact that she is mostly made of medical tape. Once she gets her clothes on she should be great. I am thinking that I will dress her in a pale pink shirt and a black coat. The same as my last youth doll. But I love the look. I don't like the cartoony head this body came with so she may get a different one. I have to check the body parts drawer and see what I have.

      The only other problem I had now was that the reins on the bridle were too short for a Stony Pony neck if I used a doll. Since I live in the land of no-fear crafting, I looked in my box of leather lace and found a piece that was the same width as the reins and nearly the same color. And I splice in a couple of new pieces to lengthen the reins just enough that the doll can hold them. If you look for it you can see the difference (maybe not in the photo, but in person) and if the doll is not holding the reins you can see the difference, but in general it looks good and it totally works. 

      I think I have a good start on this doll and can hopefully get time to finish her in the next couple of days. I have a show coming up on March 10th and I want her in it. Definitely clothes are required for that. 

      I was going to wait to do this post until the doll was finished. But then I saw that Jennifer Buxton, of Braymere Custom Saddlery, was nearing her 5,000,000th page view! Holy cow! That is an amazing accomplishment. It made me curious so I came to check my blog. I didn't have a page counter showing so I went and figured out how to add that. I have a bit over 103,000 views, which is actually really amazing considering I suck at keeping up with the blog and I don't always have anything very interesting to say. I also noticed that quite a lot of my traffic comes from referral links from the Braymere blog, lol! Jennifer is really great about things like that!

    Anyway, I wanted to keep up my blogging momentum (3 posts in one month! This is madness!) and send out a congratulations to Jennifer, who did in fact get her 5,000,000th page view. She does have the best hobby blog out there so it makes sense. I have always enjoyed her blog and have learned a lot from it. Here's to the next 5,000,000 Jennifer!

NaMoPaiMo update #2 and February vacation

I made a post very recently. Last Tuesday (a week ago) if I remember correctly. The fact that I am posting again might mean that I am crazy or we have entered a parallel universe. I guess either option is possible. Most likely though it is that I am happy, already had to be on the computer to print a class list for a show and I thought about doing it.

 This is Hugh Can Do It. He is a Hugh micro mini resin sculpted by Maggie Bennett and was painted by me for NaMoPaiMo. I have said to many people over the years that I am not a painter. I suck at painting. I have no desire to put in the work to try to be a good painter. Because that is what it takes to be good at anything, work. Practice. Lots of practice. I usually don't have the time, energy or motivation to work hard on painting. NaMoPaiMo gives me that energy and motivation every year. I WANT to paint "with" all those people. And I want to do as good of a job as I can. I had some time an motivation on Friday and Saturday and I finished up Hugh's shading and blending, fixed the blending that was not super and then I got his details done. 

 Is Hugh up to professional standards? Of course not. Is Hugh likely to win any prizes at a live show? Most likely not. Is Hugh an entirely respectable little horse and a really excellent palomino for a super beginner artist? Absolutely. Am I incredibly proud of him? Yes! I am very proud of him and I love looking at him. He is not perfect, not that perfection actually exists, but he is the best I have ever done and was a double challenge. One, he is super teeny tiny. I have painted a micro before but I worked harder on it this year. I have also never painted a palomino. If viewed at normal size, or even twice his size, he's fairly well done. Maybe I can talk myself into painting another horse before next February. 

 Other than this guy. I had the fancy rainbow Albicorn in my head and he needed to come out. I used the absolute cheapest craft paint ever on him and the yellow to green blending was just not happening. The rest of the blending went a bit better but cheap paint is not the best at... anything. Albicorn was also decorated with small flowers with Swarovski crystals at the center. So he's pretty fancy. I have no idea what I am going to do with him, but he wanted to get out of my head.

Part of my energy comes from my new way of eating and my weight loss. As of this morning I have lost a total of 47 pounds since the end of last March. I started with low carb eating around then and just tried to keep my overall day under 20 net carbs. Nothing fancy, just low carbs. I lost 37 pounds before school started up in September. But then I sort of stalled. For awhile. I would slowly...slowly...lose a bit more. Like ounces, not pounds. I can say though that I am one of a rare group of people that didn't gain weight over the holidays. This was our low carb traditional Thanksgiving feast.

 All of the foods were low carb versions of traditional Thanksgiving foods. Except the fried cabbage, that was just because we really love fried cabbage! But we had turkey and green bean casserole, mashed "potatoes" (cauliflower) and stuffing. I'm French so we have always made meat stuffing anyway. There was also pie for dessert with fresh whipped cream. A really excellent key lime pie and a French silk pie. Key lime is my favorite pie of all time so being able to eat that again was great. But I have to say, it is HARD to make. So many steps! Worth it, but I doubt that I will make it often. 

 Continuing on the low carb eating, for New Years we made a variety of pizza and calzones. How do you make pizza and calzones low carb? Fathead crust, mostly. Which is made out of almond flour, cheese and a few other things. We did try a chicken crust and it was good, but not awesome. I also did the math on it and I have to say, it was one of the most expensive pizza crusts ever. Not super for something that was just OK. Anyway, even my non-low carb daughter and her boyfriend we impressed with the low carb pizza night.

 6 weeks ago I entered a weight loss competition at school. It's a "friendly" (mostly friendly) competition that is supposed to motivate us to drop those holiday pounds. I did not gain any holiday pounds but I was stuck in a plateau for months. Maybe this was just what I needed to restart my losing. I asked Ethan to plan proper keto meals for me because I hate calculating macros which is why I never did it before. He got me started and then told me to do it. What??? I can't do this! But yes, it turns out I CAN do it. Ethan is amazing and he will push me in ways other people are not willing to. Yes, he absolutely did it for me at the beginning. But then he pushed me to do it myself but would check my daily menus for me. Now I am to the point where I can do it, I know I can do it, and it's not insanely hard to do it anymore. So I don't even need to ask for help. He pushes me to do better and it is wonderful. Now though I am in another challenge, with myself. I have never been able to do a real pushup. Ever. So I am working on it. Ethan is coming up with ideas to help me work up to it and so far I am doing slightly better, though I am not there yet. Maybe tomorrow. But I get a little bit better at it every day. Maybe soon I will stop falling on my face.

 So the competition at school was becoming frustrating. I was losing only 1/2 pound a week if I was lucky. I was eating only exactly what was on my daily menus, no extras, even measuring and weighing things (not everything, but a lot of things). I was working out every day and walking all over the school before school, during lunch and any time I had time to do it. And I was frustrated. Ethan said that my head was getting in my way (which I am sure he was right) and the stress I was putting on myself with the competition and wanting to win with likely what was holding me back. I can't drop out but I can change my thinking. So I tweaked my calories (dropped 50 per day) and I changed my mindset. I am going to go back to celebrating everything positive. I lost any weight at all? Great job! I dropped from an XL to a medium? That is super! I actually have energy to do things? That is the greatest thing ever!

I am also going to go back to having more fun with food. Keto is not a boring way to eat. I have heard so many of the people I am losing with complain about their food or always being hungry or missing things. I miss stuff too. And I was to the point of obsessing over things. I really want a cookie. Not even a real cookie, but one of the delicious low carb shortbread cookies I have in my freezer. I made them at Christmas-time and they are dipped in dark chocolate and have shaved white chocolate on them. And they are amazing and I love them. But I was being super pure on everything because I wanted to win. Now I want to be happy. Happiness is having fun with food. So I looked up several recipes for low carb egg noodles and I made "real" spaghetti  the other night. One of Travis's favorite foods is spaghetti. And we have only had zoodles in the past year. I am sure he missed spaghetti. Another wonderful thing is we are all doing low carb eating here. Ethan started it and he found some research that says that low carb eating might be helpful to the symptoms of autism. We didn't have miraculous results with Travis, but we had noticeable results. So we continue. It also makes it SO much easier since we all eat the same way. Anyway, the egg noodles were amazing, not exactly like traditional pasta but close enough to be really fun. Travis scarfed them up and asked for more. It makes me incredibly happy to be able to make spaghetti for him again. 

    I also have been on the hunt for a tortilla recipe that works. I have tried a couple that didn't work up at all and ended up in the trash. But I found one the other day which can be a flatbread, naan, tortilla or a couple of other things I have never heard of. If you roll it thin enough you have basically a tortilla. Different texture than a flour tortilla, but still good. I had a ham wrap with one yesterday and it was very good. 

    Ethan found a recipe for some pork rind tortillas so I figured I would try those out yesterday. I thinned them out a lot and they ended up looking and acting, just like a thin pancake. So I gave them to Travis like pancakes with butter. That guy doesn't even really like pancakes but he ate them and liked them a lot. Ethan tried some as thin breads for a breakfast sandwich. He said they were amazing, though he couldn't speak on their flavor on their own. But he said they were excellent as breakfast bread. I haven't tried them myself yet because they didn't fit into my macros yesterday. Today though, today I will try them. Maybe I will report back on what I think of them. I am going to try making them again today too I think. I won't thin them as much. Ethan was saying if they could be thicker, like English muffin thick, that would be nice. So I am aiming for that today. The basic idea though is I am having fun with food again. I am trying out new recipes and finding things that are easy to make and make eating fun again. THIS is why I think I can win the competition. I am not going to get bored with my eating. Not unless I let myself. 

     So in about 6 weeks I will turn 40. My goal is to lose that full 50 pounds by then. Since I only have 3 pounds to go I know I can do it. But I will start with that as my goal. Originally I was thinking I will skip any treats on my birthday because of this competition. But I have decided that is ridiculous and not fun at all. I am only going to turn 40 once and I want it to be fun. I will plan out whatever meal will be delicious and interesting and I will plan in a treat or two. I don't know if I want to make a cake, but maybe. I have a great recipe for chocolate caramel brownie cupcakes and I have only made them once. Maybe I will make those again. And I could have a cupcake and a bit of ice cream. The ice cream we eat is Enlightened and is made with erythritol, so we can eat it. It is so far one of the only ice creams I have found that is made without artificial sweeteners or sugar. Because there is a difference between alternative and artificial. I haven't totally figured out my birthday plan yet. but I have time. 
     Anyway, I know people usually come here to hear about dolls but I don't have much to say on those other than I have been really productive lately. I have a show coming up the beginning of March and I will try to post a show report then. I am going to continue to work on my weight loss and fitness and find ways to make eating fun. I doubt anyone came here for advice but I am going to give some anyway. If you are trying something and it is not working out the way you want, keep trying, don't give up. Whether it is painting a horse or trying a new way of eating or a fitness challenge or whatever. Give it your best effort and push yourself to keep going.

Recipes for some of the low carb foods pictured:
Key lime pie
coconut flour biscuits I have not tried these yet
almond flour biscuits
chocolate silk pie
Low carb egg noodles
Low carb flatbread/naan/tortillas
fathead pizza crust

NaMoPaiMo and what I’ve been up to.

As many as many people in the model horse hobby know, February is NaMoPaiMo. I am not a great painter by any stretch of the imagination. But I find it incredibly interesting to paint “with” hundreds of people from all over the world. This year’s I decided to paint my Maggie Bennett micro mini, Hugh. My skill levels dictates that I should not be painting resin horses. 

Though Hugh is not coming out too horribly. Give me time, maybe I can mess him up more. I am hoping to tone down the orange tint in his palomino coat. I heard of a trick hat I need to try when I have some time. And when it’s not snowing.

 
Togo along with my skill level I am also working on a Stablemate. This will be a rainbow Albicorn with gold and bling. Because it seemed like a fun idea. And because bling.

In other news, I have been actively working on losing weight since the end of last March. So far I have lost a total of 44 pounds and 5 weeks ago I entered a weight loss competition at school. I am hoping to win it but I lost 37 pounds before the competition started so we’ll see what happens.

recently I finally got around to designing some easy on/off skid boots. They have been on my to-do list for months. They are a very easy to use design and I really love how they turned out. I also finally have a design for open front jumping boots. I have been hoping to add those to my line-up for awhile as well. I’ve been making splint boots and fetlock boots for awhile so it was time to expand.

I have made four or five upper level dressage dolls just since the beginning of the year. They are incredibly popular at the moment for some reason. They are fun to make so I don’t mind.

I’ve made a couple of casual English dolls. One with a removable winter vest. That would be useful for the weather we are having today. We have not gotten all that much snow this year but it is snowing today. I am not a fan of snow.

                                                   
I’ve also been having a lot of fun making rugged working cowboys. There are lots of show ring cowboys out there. There are even super clean working cowboys. I wanted to make some dirty cowboys. Cowboys who have obviously been working hard. They have definitely been interesting to make.

In general I have been working fairly steadily his year. Much more than in past years. I usually get pretty draining seasonal depression and am not all that productive in the winter. This year I have a lot more energy than I usually do. Which may very well be the fact that I am eating better and working out and in general moving more.but whatever it is I have been managing to get a lot done. I am working on having a stock of dolls set aside that will hopefully be able to hitch a ride with someone to get sold during Breyerfest. One of these years I will get to be there myself. This is not that year. 

   So that is what has been going on with me recently. Still working at the school, making lots of dolls and working some on my NaMoPaiMo horses. The unified track season will start soon and I will have a lot less time for dolls. But it will be fun, it always is. Maybe I will even learn to post to ge blog more. No promises! But I am going to try. Again. I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions but I did decide that I was going to focus on 3 things this year. Saving more and spending less, losing more weight (so eating well and exercising) and being more positive. I can’t control all the things that happen around me, but I can try to work on how I react to them. Most days my plans are going very well.

2018 Doll Year in Review

    Here we are at the end of 2018. I am still bad at blogging. I think this is only the 4th post of the year, the last was in July. I could say my New Year's resolution is to update the blog more often but I would like to be realistic. Anyway, it's now time for the doll year in review. With some other stuff thrown in because why not.

The first doll of 2019 was this conquistador. He was an interesting challenge and was also the reason I learned how to make doll armor! So now I can make pretty much any type of doll. Some just take a bit more thinking about.

In total I have made just over 1200 dolls (1203 all together I believe.) I didn't know I was getting that close to a milestone so #1200 is a judge doll. The last doll of 2018 was this rainbow design western pleasure doll. She was stuck in my head and had to come out. I am happy that she came out almost just how I pictured her.

 

 In February I participated in NaMoPaiMo for the first time. I am not really a painter so I did not have high hopes for the outcome of my model.

 Still, my spotty mule is not bad. He is not great, but he is not bad. I am planning on entering NaMoPaiMo again this year. If nothing else it's a lot of fun painting "with" so many people!

 I even painted my hair in February. I have missed the pink. Also, looking at myself now, and how far the pink has grown out, reminds me how fast my hair grows.

This was the year Travis proved he can make absolutely anything look good. Even the little roll-up sunglasses they give you at the eye doctor. Elecktra and I actually had the appointment but Travis wanted the sunglasses too.

 Travis also did great things with the Unified Track Team. (game face)

and was definitely part of the team.

 In total I made just 20 Western Pleasure dolls. There were times when I felt like all I made was Western pleasure dolls. I guess I imagined that.

I did some chaps and chinks with stamped yokes. I did work the end of last year on learning how to tool, but I am not great at it in people-scale. Doll scale remains something that is beyond me. Maybe I can find time to do more practice.

I made 22 "other" dolls (they don't fit in my typical categories)

Pokemon themed jumper

Portuguese Rider

Era side saddle rider from Poldark

Bride

Marie Antoinette (with removable head)

 I only made 5 cowboys, some of them were bendy

I made 31 English dolls of different varieties. 9 casual English dolls

11 hunt seat dolls

 6 dressage dolls

and also 5 youth hunt seat dolls. 

 

 I also made 5 western youth dolls, 9 casual western rider dolls, and just one showmanship doll. In all I made 93 dolls in 2018. Not bad for a year when a lot was going on.

I sculpted these hugging bunnies for a good friend of mine. They were based on a cartoon another friend of ours posted on Facebook. I think they are cute.

 

 My husband started a T-shirt and sticker business. I got some fun stuff from him and tried to help with promotions.

 

 I got to hang out with Morgen again at TRXC. I am sure I have some "better" pics of us but this one amuses me.

 

Morgen was judging performance and while she liked my vaulting set-up, which was also new for this year, she did recommend a tweak which I am happy to say looks great!

  

The neatened up pad makes the entire entry look more polished. This also proves that often, if the judge gives you advice, following it can pay off!

 

 Later in October Travis and I went to the Best Buddies dance. He is such an awesome pirate!

 I went to some horse shows

 Did fairly well showing between 1-3 horses at each for a super low-stress experience.

 In the end I have also managed to lose 37 pounds this year. Hoping to lose a bit more next year. I am actually very happy with how 2018 turned out. I had some really fun times with shows, the track team, random silliness and good friends. We had 6 full weekend tag sales to downsize after the purging of the house we did in July. We still have some more stuff to get rid of and will likely find more as time goes on. Maybe Spring will bring some more tag sales. Who knows. Not all of this year was perfect, no year is, but it was pretty great. Next year is bringing some big milestones. I'm turning 40 in March. Ethan and I will have been together 20 years in April. Elecktra turns 21 in May. Travis will graduate high school in June. In September Ethan and I will also have been married for 10 years. Hopefully I can get lots of dolls made and some new projects I have in the works will turn out well. Here's to hoping for an awesome 2019!