New Project

     About 100 years ago, or back in October of 2010, I made this Native American tack. It took me quite a long time and still did not come out exactly as I would have liked it to. I chose to paint instead of attempting to do any sort of beadwork. Scale matters a lot to me and I didn't think I would be able to keep everything in scale with beadwork. And paint is also historically accurate, so that worked. This regalia was nice, I liked it, but it was not as refined as I would have liked it to be. 

     When I found this set on MH$P, it was very close to the set I made, but so nicely in scale! It was all done with embroidery! I loved the look of it. It was packed with details and looked amazing on Cranky Pants. I miss Cranky Pants. He was my Sencillo resin painted by Liesl Dalpe. 

     The tack also looked pretty great on Cloud Dancing, my Bold Endeavor resin. And this view shows the other side of the set and even more details. Sadly I sold Cloud Dancing because of cracking in the paint that I was not qualified to fix, I sold Sencillo and my regalia because I was broke and needed money. I ended up selling a lot of things over the years because of that. 

      Ever since I had to sell my tack I have missed it and have been on the hunt for more. Though it seems not a lot of people make Native American regalia, at least not anything that is accurate and in scale. Since I have not been able to find what I want I figured it was time to just make it myself. I repurchased the book I had originally as part of my reference. Mostly this is a book of paper dolls, but it does have some nice pictures and a bit of history. I also purchased stirrups and a saddle tree for TWMHC. These items have all been sitting here waiting for me to finish up other projects and get started. I finished my custom horse, my photos for the Best Customs contest, so now I am a lot closer to being ready to start on a new project. Maybe soon. Though I do still need to get some photos for the Breyerfest Open show. I have some, but I also need others. So maybe that is the next thing that needs to happen. 

     I almost feel like I need a deadline for this project. That was how I got my horse finished. It was how I got my custom contest photos finished. I am sure it will also be how I get my Breyerfest photos done. Or I will not get around to it at all and I just won't have much to show. I do think I can do a nice job at this. Especially if I slowly and carefully pick away at the project like I did with my custom horse. Maybe a few hours every weekend for as long as it takes to get it done. I would love to see if I could make something nicer than the one I originally made, and nicely packed with details. The first step will be to start. I am close to ready. 
 

The Mini Shelf

      I do not have a vast collection of model horses. By design. I do not have the space for a large collection. For the most part I have traditional scale performance horses (and not in large quantities), a few childhood horses, and my minis. My mini shelf is amazing. Ethan made it for me as a wedding gift. There is a brass plate on the bottom that says "custom made for Mrs. Anne T Field".  It was the first thing my married name was on. 

     When Ethan made the shelf for me he got Elecktra to help him with sizing. She took out some stablemates so they could work out how tall the shelves should be. It was meant as a stablemate shelf. It has turned into something else.

      My Little Man Mango resin, named Pacific Redeemer (which was the name of one of Travis's therapeutic riding horses) is a traditional scale foal. But he has lived on this shelf for an extremely long time. And likely he always will. 

     Years ago I had all of my G2 appaloosa stablemates in a nice long conga that covered an entire shelf by itself. I think at the peak of things I had over 20 of them. Then I decided to severely cut down the collection and I now have 4. But there is a new one in the Breyer Stablemate club lineup for this year and I likely will keep it. At least for a while. 

     I do also have a small conga of Django models starting. I really do like this mold. I had the bay model from the Horse Crazy Series 2 gift set. But then I decided to part with it, and I can't remember why. Probably to cull the herd a bit. The stablemate set from Breyerfest last year had the really pretty dappled gray Django, who I kept (obviously), Henrik is from the Breyer stablemate club this year, and the clearware decorator is Navya, who was from Breyerfest 2017 and I recently acquired him. I also bought a new series 2 giftset to get the bay again, None of the others are calling to me, though the original Django is nice. 

     Having such crowded shelves means that cleaning is a challenge and not something that happens all that often. But the shelves are glass, as you can see, and they do start to look pretty horrible after a bit. Last weekend I decided to clean the shelves, cull some micros from my collection, and reorganize things a bit. Now I have different horses at eye level, which is fun. I also took more than just these photos so I can share some more posts about my mini collection. I was inspired by Lynn Isenbarger's (horseimama) recent series on her circus collection. I have been struggling to work lately, so have very little to talk about, and people seem to enjoy collection photos. And show photos. Must be our collective love of model horses. I am planning a couple more mini collection photos and then thought I might do tack or dolls. We'll see. I should get into the props!
 

Struggles in the Cold

        We used to routinely turn our heat off April 1st. We would get a few cold days after we did, but it was not usually too bad. This year we waited until the middle of May to turn the heat off. That seemed safe. It was not. This past weekend it got super cold and we had daytime highs of barely 50 degrees. That was not fun. Especially when it was nearly June. In the past week we have had temps in the 70's, 90's, and 50's. That sort of weather swing makes me really tired and unmotivated. I am struggling to get things done. Again.

      There is no reason that a hunt seat doll should take me an excessively long time. But the two I was working on last week are still not finished. I have struggled every step of the way with them. I did get the bodies prepped and the clothes sewn. And then a bit further, but not a whole lot. First it was abruptly 20 degrees warmer (and humidish) and then it was 40 degrees lower than that just a couple of days later. That definitely leaves me tired. Maybe soon things will even out. Then it will likely just be humid for months. 

     Ethan found a new alfredo sauce that is pretty low carb so we tried it out on one of the low carb pastas we tried recently. This is from The Great Low Carb Bread Company. It's very expensive, so not something we will have often, and it is lower carb than regular pasta, by a lot, but not super low carb. So this is a rare one for us. We are going to try out some more pastas, with alfredo sauce, and see what we like best. For science. 

      We're down to 11 days of school now. Tomorrow is the bio MCAS, so that is half the day. Finals are next week, and those days are all half days. And then our last day is the 15th, but I think students are just in for a half a day, and only if they need to make something up. Almost there. And it should warm up again.

Ranchita

     I really have had one of the most excellent mail weeks in a very long time! I received my micro Scarlett I ordered a while back, my new pink and black parade set made by Wendy Ward, and I also got back a piece painted by Kenzie Williams. It really feels like my birthday. If my arena would show up I might pass out from excitement!

     I know there is an ongoing debate about whether or not people should include any sort of extras i packages. And just as in any other debate, there are people who are firmly against it, and people who love it. I happen to love it. I think the little extras just make the package more fun to open. Sure, I don’t NEED them, or expect them, but when the extra touches are there I certainly appreciate them! 

     When I opened up the box the first thing I saw was this lovely pearlized pink envelope. With a cute horsie thank you sticker on it!

    Inside was a nice hand written note, a really pretty business card, and a wonderful horse sticker that I almost immediately put on my laptop. But I resisted! I have a ton of stickers on there and I know sooner or later I will need to replace the laptop because that is the nature of computers. Though it’s not all that old yet... I will likely find a way to collect more stickers before I have a need for more... there is still a chance that sticker is going on my laptop. Or a tack box, I hear that is a think people do.

     

     So what was in this gorgeous package from Kenzie? My Ranchita! Kenzie and I worked out a trade a bit ago and I basically said I like bays and to do what she wanted, lol. We did eventually work out it would be a bay paint, but you all know I love a good bay horse!

     I bought Ranchita when Morgen Kilbourn Rossomando came out with her. I decided I needed to the mini (and then the micro) Ranch mare. I really love this mold but the traditional scale one was sort of a shelf hog. The little ones fit almost anywhere. 

     Do you know what happens when you give an artist the bare minimum of guidelines and let them do what they want? You most often end up with an amazing piece that is so much better than something you micromanaged every detail of. Kenzie put such amazing details into this horse (who needs a name) and I would never have thought to ask for them. I love her nose so much! And the super interesting marking on her right front leg. And the 2-toned hoof! This horse really is fantastic and I am really happy that she is mine. 

     Kenzie is going to have a variety of horses for sale during Breyerfest. I can’t remember where I saw the post but I believe there will be 2 traditional scale models which she will take offers on and some smaller pieces which (I think) are first come, first served. I am really looking forward to Breyerfest!

 

And Just Like That, I Have a New Horse

     My new horse, Just a Theory, was made specifically for my secret entry in the Breyerfest Best Customs contest. I am not a fantastic customizer (yet) but knew that I could do a good enough job for a performance entry. So I worked for a few months and now I have a new performance horse. Just like that, lol. The first goal of any performance entry is proper tack fitting. I have a lot of tack, but none of it was fitted for JT, so I spent a lot of time making sure everything was properly adjusted.

       I have been using my pink and black English tack a lot, which is the perfect size for the 3 different horses I was using it on. But this time I wanted to use more traditional colored tack. As I was fiddling with the bridle I noticed that the browband strap had let go on one side. So I fixed that, fiddled some more, and got everything adjusted nicely.

    And then it was time for porch railing glamor shots! JT really does look nice in tack.

    The left side of the neck is not my favorite. He’s a bit chonky. Not horrible or anything, just a bit. But he still looks good in tack.

      I made this horse with one goal in mind, which was the customs contest. If I win, super! That would be fantastic. If I don’t that is OK too. Because now I have a new performance horse. And performance showing is my favorite part of model horse showing!
 

Tiny and Awesome

     A month or two ago I saw a post from Stacey Tumlinson saying that she was offering micro Scarletts! Scarlett is one of my all time favorite resins. I have a mini Scarlett and still would really love to get a traditional scale Scarlett. I don’t currently have space for a traditional Scarlett, but I sure would love to have one. But for now teeny tiny Scarlett is making me incredibly happy. I have just this one right now but I could easily see having many of this particular horse! Too bad I missed the order window to get more. 

     We are down to the wire with this school year. And I am glad about that! This has definitely been a very weird year and I hope we never have another one like it. Remote teaching is hard. Being a remote para is exceptionally hard because we help kids, but don’t want to call them out in the middle of class. Once we went to hybrid it was both easier and harder. Now there were some kids in person. But sometimes I ended up with kids in the class and kids at home. It is still hard to be in 2 places at once. Breakout rooms helped the issues, some, but not always. But we are coming to the end. Just a couple weeks to go...

    The weather for the most part is a lot better. A whole bunch of nice days with some unseasonably warm days thrown in. Though I guess since it IS almost (unofficial) summer, maybe it's not so unseasonable. The humidity has been going up as well, which I am not a fan of at all. 

      

   
 

I am Bidder #4

      Last week Wendy Ward of Two Horns Bar Custom Saddle Works, offered a pink and black parade set which she made to fit a Stone Pony. It was pink and black, that was enough for me. I asked her to PLEASE tag me in the post when it went up for sale. As soon as I saw it was available I immediately put in an offer. Shortly after that I was outbid, and then the offer was upped twice more. I had a maximum in mind that I was willing to spend so I set a calendar reminder to check back right before the end of the offer period and if it wasn't at or above my max I would offer a bit more. 

     My first offer was open, right on the Facebook page. After that everyone went with private bids. I have no idea why really. So for my second bid I sent Wendy a message and said I guess since everyone else did it I would try a private bid. So I became bidder #4. Even though originally I was actually the first bidder. Anyway, yesterday I got a package in the mail. It was wrapped in pink tissue paper. Already I loved it. 

    Inside the hot pink tissue paper, was pale pink tissue paper and a cute little bag. 

Inside the bag were a bunch of stickers, several different business cards, and a pink micro. 

     But the absolute best was the parade set. I immediately got Halestorm off the shelf and got him dressed. Since the set was made for a Stone pony, it is obviously a perfect fit. I love how everything drapes!

The hip drops are nice and supple and hang really nicely. 

     The details on the saddle are really well done and a bit different from an average parade saddle. 

     I own another parade set that Wendy made for me several years ago. That one also has roses on it. It may be the newness, but I think I might like this set just a little better than my other one. 

    So Halestorm has a new parade set and soon I will need to get some proper show photos of him wearing it. But first I will have to make a doll. Obviously.