What Would You Like To See?

I have a ton of photos. And I have a bunch of each event, so I'm letting you guys decide what you would like to see first.
So would you like to see more from Build The Barn Live,

Western Pleasure,

Huntseat,

Pleasure driving

or a costume class?

Jumping Into Smaller Scales

Remember this saddle from months ago and how I didn't have a model for it?

At Build The Barn Live, I bought myself a Pebbles Arab mare to wear the tack. She's a past Design A Horse.

And since buying the mare, I think I'm going to give a go at Pebbles Sized Performance. Imagine the possibilities, minus the space! So between the slot of getting home from school, going to work, and working on a girth, I decided to make something for my mare. Since I have a western saddle, western should come first. So I decided to make a pop the balloon prop for her(she needs a name!).
So I grabbed my plastic/fake grapes. I use these for balloons since reading about them on a dollhouse website. They're cheaper and you get more. Plus no shipping! And they're really flexible.

So I painted them and dyed the wood (my friend Lizzie of Blue Spring Stables first had the idea of dyeing the wood, since it wouldn't get as dirty as white).

And glued them onto the wood.

I took it a step farther and made a stablemate sized one.

Glue will dry clear, so not worries there!

Next step of performance: dolls
Tiny dolls.

Build The Barn Live

Yesterday I got to go to Build The Barn Live. It was an awesome show, and the first one held by the show holder (awesome job!).
There were some really cool halter horses.

Owned by Nina Henne

But as you know me, I love performance, so took plenty of performance pictures. There was a range of different performance things,

ranging from unrealistic stuff

My zombie set up got a first place in a  tough class!

to realistic

Owned by Niki Hertzog

Owned by Lizzie Mace

and very creative!

*gasp* all the balloons!

There was an awesome raffle

with cool items

and *gasp* I won something!

If anything belongs to you, let me know. I'll tag you! And there will be more photos coming up soon!

Breaking Down

I've always said that the right supplies help make the end product right.
Before now, I made my stitch makes by hand or with a much too large stitch maker. I was scanning Amazon and looked up Pounce Wheels. I broke down and bought one.
It'll make the marks in scale and faster too! I'll get it before my show, so I can finish stuff :)

Using Time Wisely

I am a procrastinator.
Actually, I am a super procrastinator.
I have a show on Saturday, and while I have a ton of really cool ideas in my head, I don't think all of them will surface at the next show!
Anyhow, while on my layover between classes, I did some documentation. Some of it was already made, other bits and pieces needed revised and other parts are new. So yay! I got something done!

A Productive Weekend

This has been a wonderful and productive weekend. Finished 90% of these 3 saddles(just need girths).
Now to do that homework. :)

Ice..Ice...Baby

A very bad pun, since I'm pretty sure the song had nothing to do with ice.
After reading Jennifer Buxton's post about making ice props, I decided that I wanted ice too. Plus it looked nothing like a harder project, like a jump or scene. So after some research and a quick trip to the store, I made myself a bucket of ice.

Tip Of The Day-Organizing Nan Cards

I love back to school time. It's not because of the actual school part. Instead, it's the sales. I load up on model horse items during the season. Not because I actually have a plan for it, but because it's cheap. You can get tons of pencils and pens for dirt cheap. I lose my pens like clock work, so it's nice for me to load up on them.
Anyhow, I guess there will be more than one tip in this post.
The real post is how to organize those nan cards. For some projects I  think the DIY part saves you. For this one, I don't think it does. It's easier to just buy it.   But to organize Nan cards, plastic index card holders are the best. Nan cards are about the same size as an index card so it fits in the container. You can buy them for about 4$ off of Amazon (link). I bought mine for a dollar at my local office store( back to school perks!). So shop around.

Picture from www.oempromo.com

Now the one I bought has little dividers where I wrote performance, collectibility, and halter. I sorted my cards that way. If you have a ton of NAN cards, then you may need a index card holder for each separate division. If you have a horse that has plenty of NAN cards that warrant a separation, then get it its own separate card holder.
So that's the tip for today, hopefully it helps. :)

Puppies The Size Of Bunnies

I love pretty much any baby animal that's cute. Especially puppies since they are so squirmy, klutzy, and just overly excited about everything.

 My mom's friend got a new French Bulldog puppy, named Roux and brought her over to my house yesterday. My sister and I took plenty of pictures, while playing with the adorable puppy.
She met new types of animals. Rue the cat (pronounced the same way as Roux) was not thrilled one bit about the tiny puppy.

Look how small she is compared to Bullet the Bunny!

Bullet the Bunny enjoyed the puppy though. He smelled her and allowed her to lick and love on him. Normally he is the bully, but he let Roux do her puppy antics around him.

And after tons of playing, rest.

Young animals are a ton of fun! :)

Resin Painting

I decided that one of my long weekend projects would be to paint a resin, since I have like 2 weeks until my next show. There's also a side saddle too. :)
I prepped her.

Then I painted her base color with acrylics. I splurged and bought higher quality paint, and it definitely shows. I kept doing layers until it was even.

After that I began using pastels and began to shade. I went from light to dark. It took a couple of layers to get it even and between coats I used krylon matte spray. Also I wore gloves so that my skin didn't touch the unsealed pastels.

Once I was happy with the pastels, I sprayed the model with the krylon crystal clear. Once dry, then I added the white markings and painted her eyes.

Here she is!