Black Friday And A Saddle

I braved the crowds and survived.
I went to best buy, Books A Million and Michaels.
The most crowded was Michaels and that was pretty tame in terms of pictures. When I was done with Michaels, I was done with crowds. :)

The best deal of the day would be a toss up between Michaels and Best Buy. Michaels had all of the Christmas things on sale. Best Buy had the SD cards on sale. So both were great.

Later in the day, Lizzie sent me a text message with pictures of an English Side Saddle.

She took pictures of it from multiple angles.

So while I didn't buy anything per say horsey this Black Friday, Lizzie's pictures made up for it!

Happy Thanksgiving

"Over and over I marvel at the blessings of my life: Each year has grown better than the last."-Lawrence Welk

I hope everyone that celebrates Thanksgiving had a nice one! My mom, sister, and I drove to New Jersey to see family, so it was a nice time with plenty of food. :)

A Western Side Saddle and Poetry Book

It started out as a mass of tooled leather.

Then it became a more organized jumble of leather.

Now it's beginning to look more like a saddle.

I never realized just how many pieces there were to a western side saddle! Yet, even though there are many pieces, it's been alot of fun so far.
A while ago I got a letter in the mail saying that a poem I had written had been selected to be put into an accolade. I found my copy in the mail today!

How To Make A Miniature and Regular Sized Ornament

How to make a miniature Harry Potter miniature and a Regular sized winged keys

Picture from here

So this year I have two trees to decorate. One is a dollhouse sized on and the other one is regular sized. So I thought why not make them the same?  After that I thought why not make them fandom inspired? I decided to have the first one be Harry Potter themed. The keys were from the first book/movie. :)

First, I bought keys from my local Joann Fabrics. 

I made sure that the keys for the miniature one were tiny. The regular sized one can be any size, but I bought large ones. 

I painted them gold. Then I wiped the paint off because I wanted the keys to have a rustic feel.

From there I grabbed a piece of tooling leather and drew wings. I wet the leather but did not cut the piece out so it did not stretch. 

I cut the wing design I wanted with my exacto knife. I didn't cut all of the way through the leather, just the first layer.

 Using my stylus I pushed, outlined and made impressions into the leather until I was happy.

I cut it out. I also wet the wings again so that I could 'sculpt' them into the shape I wanted them to be.

 Then I painted it white, and then glued the key to the wings.

Done! Add a piece of wire and they can be stuck onto a tree. :)

The Giveaway

My laptop and I have many disagreements. Yesterday was a huge one where it decided to take forever to update. But our relationship is intact again so I can blog!

Anyways, back to the giveaway. In honor of hitting 50,000 page views and since it is Christmas time (too soon? haha) there is going to be a giveaway. A saddle giveaway. Since I never decided what type, the winner will be able to pick the type of saddle (within reason of course).

So the giveaway will start now, November 25 to December 12. The winner will be chosen that weekend. 

I decided to do it by comments instead of the rafflecopter. Comments are more personal, so I can comment back :) Any comment from now to then is an entry. Can be old or new posts. Be reasonable though. Don't go on one post and make a string of separate posts like this.

I

L
O
V
E 

H
O
R
S
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Anything like that will be deleted.
The giveaway is open for those in the United States. I would love to have it open to everyone in the world, since my blog readers are from all over the world, but until I have more experience with international shipping, I'm going to say United States only this time.
I can't think of anything else that needs said, so good luck all!

50 Thousand!

Five Paws Studio hit 50 thousand page views today!
So in honor of that milestone I decided to show something that also had come a long way.
For the past couple of months, my mom said she wanted to redo the craft room at my house. She has wanted to have something she'd finished on here, so here's the finished craft room!

The door house that is older than me and probably will never be finished. :)

*Also, in honor of the 50 k, there will be a giveaway!

Model Horse Fun Times

Tonight Lizzie came over.
While the plan was for us to make documentation and similar things we instead did everything but.
We went to dinner,

Explored the new Five Below,

And looked at fabric at Joanns before or closed.

Lizzie took this picture of me with the glitter fabric

Lizzie also brought models and we played dress up.

Mockingjay

Tonight was the opening to Mockingjay Part One, which is the last installment of the Hunger Games trilogy. I saw it with fellow hobbyist Melissa! I love how first showings are being done now. I can see the first showing without having to wait till midnight.

I enjoyed the movie, so when I got home, I made a mini Mockingjay book. 

Big Mockingjay and Mini Mockingjay

Misty Makes A Movie

In the past month, I have semi-rejoined eBay.

The thing I like about Ebay is being able to find vintage things.

I bought Misty Makes A Movie. 

Adding items to my stock of 'Misty things' for the collector class is always a good thing.

As you know, I love Chincoteague, Misty and Marguerite Henry related things.  The book was based off of Marguerite Henry's Misty of Chincoteague and the movie Misty. It was published in 1961. 

It's fifty-three years old, so I think the book is in pretty good condition, especially for it to be a children's book.

It is a thin book.  Yet, it is filled with photos

The Pied Piper in the movie

and drawings

along with being able to summarize the story of Misty in a low number of pages.

I can't wait to incorporate it into my next collector's class!

I smell.......

Five Paws Studio is close to hitting 50,000-page views!
So in celebration of that, I plan on having my first ever giveaway.
As you know, I don't plan ahead. My planning ahead is the night before. But a giveaway, just as sending in entry forms for a show, causes one to do a little bit of planning ahead.
Since this is a big milestone (to me it is!), I'm planning on giving away a saddle. And it'll be just in time for Christmas.
So I'm not blowing the trumpet yet for the giveaway. I have to finish the details. But I'm excited about the number so I couldn't act like I hadn't seen it!

2014 PA National Horse Show

So cheers to everyone who's been a follower to someone who has just clicked. Thanks!

Breyerfest 2014

Doll Surgery

I decapitated a doll.
She handled it well, or as well as a doll can take it. Seeing that they aren't real and such. :)

She is a jointed doll but was made with a humongous out of scale head. I just like her body, head not needed.
I bought this sculpting book years ago but never tried to sculpt anything from it. So why not try to sculpt a new head?
If sculpting a realistic human head doesn't come out, well, realistic, there are plans B and C.
She could become a headless horseman.

Or she could be something from Attack On Titan.

I went to an Anime convention in Oct, and didn't know who these people were. I'm proud of myself that I know now!

New Things

Today I finished making an english saddle. This is the first saddle using my new leather, so that's always fun!

I really like this saddle. 

Last week, Jana Skybova  had a sale on bell boots. So of course I bought some! She was wonderful to work with and the boots I got were awesome (I bought other colors, but purple is my favorite color).

Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday is all about Build The Barn aka the show that happened in September and I never showed the pictures from it!
Racing:

Other Performance:

Hunter over fences:

Jumper over fences:

English Trail:

Dressage:

English Pleasure:

Cattle Events:

Western Games:

Trail:

Western Riding/Reining:

So if all of these photos don't cause blogger to have a meltdown, I don't know what will!
So finally. Those are the performance pictures from Build The Barn Live!