A quick post to share...

A bunch of years ago I had a model horse showing friend named Lauren. She was always a very creative shower and fun to compete with (because creative people are fun to compete against/get ideas from). She moved away and I had no idea where she ended up until now. I just saw this blog post from her. She hasn't been active in the model horse hobby for awhile and is trying to rehome some of her remaining hobby items. Part of entering the drawing the win the goodies is answering a question; basically what will you do with the items if you win them. Well that's easy, I will donate them to MEPSA to be used as fund raisers or for year end prizes at the champs show. And I will be reading Lauren's blog now that I know where she is :)

This photo was one I snagged from her model horse post. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series she has planned.

TRXC halter day

I am not a halter shower. Anyone that knows me knows I am not a halter shower. I don't have fancy horses, my horses have a lot of accidents so I try not to have things that are too valuable. I care almost nothing about breed assignment. I am not a halter shower. But TRXC is a fun show and staying an extra day to sell dolls and hang out with hobby friends is worth it. Even though I might not win anything or even remember to put my horses on the table. Surprisingly though my horses did pretty well.

 Jazira got second in breed in the open show. She often does very well in breed. I joked after everyone put their horses on the table that I should get a prize for having the smallest horse on the table. Then I joked that I DID get a prize for the smallest horse. I don't have a very large collection of minis but the ones I have are very carefully chosen.

 McQueen added to his medals for the weekend by getting a top 5 in workmanship. I have no idea who painted him but he is very pretty and I love him.

 Bootlegger doesn't get much love in halter but he did get 3rd in workmanship. I think that's the best he ever does. He's still an awesome performance horse though and that's what matters.

 Halestorm is my new (to me) custom Stone pony. She got second in her breed class...

 ...and then a top 5 in the pony stakes. I was very impressed with her. She is doing better in halter than in performance. Yes, I will be fixing that shortly :)

 Then there is Pacific Redeemer. P.R. was named after my son's favorite horse at the therapeutic riding barn. P.R. is actually a very old horse so I thought it would be fun to have Meghann Hoscheid (Lorei) paint my Little Man Mango (sculpted by Morgen Kilbourn) as P.R as a baby. It amuses me. P.R. got first in his breed class and I got to show Morgen because she had come up to judge at the show.

Then P.R. got champion in the foals workmanship stakes and I was thrilled! Partly because of who the horse was named for but also thrilled for Meghann. She is a fantastic artist and I don't think she gets the recognition she deserves. Though I do believe it's coming.
   So that was my TRXC experience this year. I did very well and I'm very grateful to all the artists who contributed pieces of my performance entries or paint work or the sculptures. I love this hobby and I love all the talent in it. I'm not a halter shower but I had a really good halter showing day. I think next year I will judge.

TRXC CM performance

This past weekend was the the region X championship show (TRXC). Not only did I have my big yearly doll sale but I also did a decent amount of showing. Here are my placings of the day:

 Bootlegger won champion in patterned performance stakes

 Hurricane Deck won reserve champion in Action western stakes.

McQueen got a top 5 in the Action English stakes (even though I forgot the gate piece for my jump)

and then McQueen also got top five in games

 Enchanted Eve won reserve champion in the pleasure stakes

 and then a top 5 in the trail stakes

 Caramel Latte got a top top in the other performance stakes

 and Flash in the sky got reserve champion in the other performance stakes.

 Lady Liberty is the only OF horse I brought and she only showed in one class in the OF performance stakes. She got a top 5 for her showmanship entry (and in the open show she got one more NAN card towards her superior event horse award...almost there).

 Cranky Pants received a top 5 in the costume stakes. My plan is to redress the doll so she looks nicer. I had nothing to do with the creation of this Native American costume and I don't even know who made it. I do know that it is stunning and intricate and I love it very much.

I did get some nice placings in the open show but I did also mess up several things because my mind was wandering or I was distracted by something else. It was a fun day and my horses did very well. I even stayed for halter day. Maybe some photos tomorrow.

The TRXC doll sale

   Every year region X has a championship show in November. The region X championship show (TRXC) is a slightly scaled down open show with stakes classes. It's a lot of fun and also a wonderful place for me to try to sell dolls.

   Every year I mean to get started early. Like July. But somehow that doesn't happen. I might make a doll and put it away for the sale in November but then I might take it back out and sell it on ebay (that happened at least 4 times this year) or I might offer the dolls in trade if I find something I want and people are interested in a trade. If I started in July and didn't sell and trade the dolls getting a good stock of finished dolls ready would be pretty easy. But things don't work out that way. My lofty goal for this year was to have 20 dolls to bring to the sale. I did it. And I even got to take most of the week before the show off. Here is what I ended up with:

 

Black and white western pleasure doll (sold)

 upper level dressage doll (part of a trade)

 western pleasure cowboy (available for sale)

 red and black western pleasure doll (sold)

 royal blue and black casual/working cowboy (donation for Miami Valley Live)

 Super bendy cowboy. He has bendy arms, legs and neck. (available for sale)

 Youth doll in gray coat (available for sale)

 Casual English lady on the Breyer body (available for sale)

 Yvonne hunt seat doll in navy blue (sold)

 Yvonne hunt seat doll in black coat (available for sale)

 Yvonne side saddle doll (possibly sold)

 casual/working Yvonne in royal blue (available for sale)

 green western pleasure Yvonne (sold)

aqua western pleasure Yvonne (sold)

gray and pink saddle seat doll (sold)

 turquoise and black showmanship doll (taken for my personal collection)

 royal blue, black and white western pleasure Yvonne (available for sale)

 casual hunt seat Yvonne (sold)

 

 youth hunt seat doll in navy blue (sold)

western pleasure Yvonne in tan, blue and yellow (sold)

It is a lot of work and many long days as the show day nears to get ready for my big TRXC sale. But it's also fun to meat a big goal and have a good variety of dolls for people to play with. Maybe next year I will start early and not sell or trade the finished pieces. Stranger things have happened.

The region 10 tag manager

Recently there has been some talk about starting a national tagging system. I only show in region X but I can certainly see the value in the system having used the RX tag system since 2007. I guess when you first hear about it there could be some confusion on what it's all about so I figured I would do a blog post about the tag system. I have experience with it as both a shower and show holder and have found it very convenient in both cases. I would also like to note that this is entirely about the region 10 tag system which is what I have experience with. I know nothing about the plans (or if there ARE plans) for the national system and I am sure it will not be identical to the RX system. That being said I would also like to say I learned to take a screen shot to do this post.
   So how do you get started? Well that's easy, you put in your email address, your name and your region X number (I believe that is ALL you need to sign up). A region X number is the number you get when you decide to show in region X. It is yours forever and all of your horse's numbers start with that 3 digit number. Once you are signed up for the tag manager you start adding horses. The add a horse page looks like this 

Since my number is 511 and I am signed into my account it is automatically up there. Now I just need to put in a 3 digit number for my horse, it's name, gender and so on. It's super easy and takes almost no time. If I want to do a bunch at once I can keep on going by clicking the Add Horse button. That will bring me to this same page and the horse I just entered will show up at the top (so you can't forget what you just did). If you are done adding horses you can click back to list to get to your horse list. That looks like this

This is just a piece of mine but it has all the tags in order as I have entered them, the horses names, their breeds, gender and make. I can easily edit or erase any of them with the buttons to the right of the names.
    If I am going to a show I can easily print tags from this same list. All I need to do is check off the horses I need tags for and click print tags. The system will ask me if I want to print all the tags or the selected tags. I will choose the selected tags and I will get a page that looks like this.

This is cropped down from a full page. These are regular address label size and can print nicely on Avery tags. When you are done stick them on a hang tag so they look like this

and this is the back

When at a show you put your horse on the table with the number side up. The judge writes down the number and then flips the tag over and can add the horse's name and the owner's name on the judge's sheet. Simple.

OK so I printed my tags and stuck them together and now I need a horse list to bring to the show. So I can do the same thing and go to the menu and click on print horse list. I get the same options of all or selected and I again choose selected (I really only NEED to list the horses I am bringing after all. So now my printed horse list will look like this

I show mostly in performance so I don't usually have huge horse lists to bring to the shows :)
When I hosted my first show (the month before the tag manager came into being) I told my judges to just write down the horse's number.  I had only ever attended two live shows and because I was very new and a first time show holder I didn't realize that in saving the judges time I was causing myself a big headache. I had to look back and forth between the number in the results to the horse lists, type the name and then on to the next placing. Results took weeks. If I hadn't goofed and had had the judges write the names I am sure it would have been quicker but still labor intensive. The next year when I held my show it took me two hours, total, to do the results. And it was a very large show. Also I didn't have to look things up or type anything other than the numbers. The data base pulled up the horse name and the owners name. Here is what that looks like

All I had to do was pull up the class name, type in the number of horses in the class then click on the first placing. After that I just had to type in the numbers because it would skip down to the next line after I typed in 6 numbers. Typing up the results for one class takes about 20 seconds. It really is super easy. When you are done all you have to do is click on generate results and you will get pages that look like this

There is also the option to print NAMHSA results which will give just the first and second place horses info. Oh, here is a nice shot of the menu for the tag system

It's very easy to use the show holder menu or the show menu. The site is easy to use, easy to navigate and doesn't take a lot of time. It probably took longer to do this post than it takes me to prepare my horse lists and so on to bring to a show. Plus when it's time for TRXC (The Region X Championships) there is a whole menu just for that. And it's very cool.

Any questions?

Oh the mini donuts...

 The other day Jennifer Buxton did a blog post about miniature donuts. Well it was sort of a post about a prop that got out of control but I understand. I have spent many hours on many Saturday mornings making miniature food from polymer clay. There are so many tutorials to be found on line (and I picked up several books as well) and as Jennifer mentioned, it's fun to make miniature food. 

I have made pancakes...

 cinnamon rolls...

 brownies...

 cakes in pans...

 cake on plates...

 cookies...

 and once a whole tray of assorted pastries to thank my friend Marci for coming all the way down to my area of the world to pick up my horses for NAN.

 No donuts though. I have a serious lack of donuts in my miniature food collection. The box template makes it almost irresistible...There may be tiny donuts in my future. And some more pie.

 and maybe some more croissants. I love miniature food! I wonder if anyone would want to trade miniature food. How fun could that be!

Hmm, I guess this is the second time I have blogged about mini food. If you'd like to see how far my food has come you can check out the first addition of miniature food :)