Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope you all have a wonderful day, eat lots of tasty food and (hopefully) find some nice pony-shaped presents under the tree! :D

A little batch of tacky stuff!

I feel like I haven't made anything remotely tacky in a while, but that isn't true at all, I just haven't blogged about it yet! XD

Ages ago I was admiring Nichelle's excellent tutorial for a bareback pad and thought 'hmmm, I could make that...now, which of my Julips would like one?'

Cut to a few weeks ago and the answer came to me - Freckles! It's not quite as squishy looking as Nichelle's (I had to use a different glue than usual which hardened rather than dried flexible) but I like it all the same, although it doesn't mould to her back very well, making her look even more fat and witherless than usual! XD





I made her a bridle too, with nice chunky rope reins, a ribbon browband and bright orange bit guards. These were simply baked orange fimo which was rolled out very thin, then cut out with the lid of a pen. (like a cookie cutter!)



Two of the ponies got new winter rugs as well, (although Agrimony doesn't really need it, being a hardy Highland and all...but it does look good on her, so I think I might let her keep it after all. :P)





Talisman's rug does actually fit him properly, I didn't realise it was all bumphled up at the front until I was sorting out the photos on the computer. XD



I really love the fabric the rug's made from though. I can't remember where I bought it from but it's lovely soft cotton and has been used before for Tegan's hooded turnout.



He also got a simple snaffle bridle with plaited reins to match his rug.



Luna had her bridle upgraded slightly, with bit guards (made from sequins, but they're a bit small so I might try the fimo trick at some point) and a new 'gilded' and plaited browband as her old ribbon one had faded.



She's also got herself a new rider! I found this BBC Robin Hood figure second-hand and after a bit of surgery (involving donated arms!) he now makes a rather good little showjumper. I think he's going to be her and Kenway's new owner.



This one is ancient but I never posted it. XD

I've always had Rhona the Highland kitted out in nice Natural Horsemanship themed stuff with a treeless saddle and bitless bridle, but a while back I thought I'd go one step further and have her ridden in just a headcollar. She's a very sweet and reliable old mare until you show her a jump so this nice padded headcollar suits her very well. I didn't made the rope reins though, they were part of a very generous gift from Gryffindoon Ropes a number of years ago.

It has felt padding at the nose and poll and the colours are thistle themed. :D





New boy Spud got a bridle as well. I still haven't decided on a colour scheme for him as he keeps changing his mind every time I think I've got it sorted! I made a simple 'Tom Thumb' styled bit from one half of a hook and eye closure and included a little curb chain as well, although it's a link too long and I'll need to tweak it...



Here he is, sans clothes. :P
I ordered him as my 25th birthday present to myself, only I'm useless at remembering to order things in time so he's kinda a Christmas present now too as I missed my birthday by about a month, haha.
I asked Laura to paint him similar to a lovely pintaloosa I've seen a couple of times at the RHS and she did a great job of capturing such a complicated colour!

I asked for a personalised freezemark too with my initials and age so I'll always have a little memento of one of my 'big' birthdays.

Copperfox Model Horses

As many of you in the hobby will have seen by now, Utterly Horses founder Becky Benfield, has set up her own model horse company, Copperfox. She's looking for backers on Kickstarter and I'd wholeheartedly recommend making a pledge.

- * - SEE HERE - * -

Breyer and Stone are great and have some lovely models, but for those of us in the UK, the chance of them releasing anything that looks like our beloved native breeds is slim, and the rare few that have been made haven't been particularly accurate to the breed standard. Copperfox offers the opportunity to see a huge variety of British breeds, and I for one can't wait to see how it goes! They have loads of plans for future moulds including Shires, Clydesdales, Highlands, Shetlands, Suffolks, Hackneys - you name it, and they're probably planning it!

The first three models are as follows:

A fantastic Welsh Sec D sculpted by Kelly Sealey, an Exmoor by Harriet Knibbs and a Connemara by Kitty Cantrell. (not my photos, but taken from the kickstarter page)
They are all 1/9th scale, so will fit in with other Traditional scale models perfectly.

There are a range of pledge options, but by far the most popular is the 'Fennec Fox' package of £50, which will get you one of the first horses released in plastic, which is the one I've gone for as I would absolutely love a bay Welsh Cob.

I MEAN JUST LOOK AT HIM!

No money will be taken from you until the entire total is reached, and only if the total is reached by the deadline of January the 5th.
 
I urge you all to seriously consider making a pledge - no matter how small, as this is a fantastic opportunity that we really cannot afford to miss!

Light up those pumpkins! (tutorial)

It may have taken me the best part of a month to post, but here's how I made the little illuminated pumpkins for my Halloween setup.

At first I just made them out of solid fimo, but then, whilst looking to see if anyone else had a better idea for making them hollow, I stumbled upon this excellent tutorial.
She advocated using polystyrene balls in the centre, as the material shrinks under extreme heat. I didn't have any the same type, but I did have some scraps of polystyrene packing material which I was able to tear up into little clumps. It's a fantastic technique and one I will certainly use again!

I used dried grape stems for the stalks, and made a variety of pumpkins of all shapes and sizes as I tried to work out how best to light them.

 I'm a big fan of £1 shops, especially this time of year as you get a lot of useful LED products to choose from with all manner of seasonal items coming out during the runup to Christmas. Most are too big and/or poorly made to use, but if you've got your eye in you can find a lot to salvage.
 I bought a set of battery powered LED pumpkin lights, and found to my delight that the hollow plastic pumpkins simply popped off the bulbs/ (I used a cut down one for David's head in the final photo, ahaha!)

As the fimo pumpkins were so thin, I carved a small hole at the back of them and fed the bulb through...et voila!

I taped the lights to the table and used a combination of blu-tack and, at one point, superglue, to keep them down as they kept pinging back up. XD

Once they were all in the right place I added the pumpkins, made sure they were secure and covered the exposed wiring with foliage.

I made a new batch of autumn leaves too, using some freshly fallen leaves from a cherry tree down the road and a variety of paper punches. I punch them out when they're fresh, then leave them to dry as if you try it when the leaves have already hardened they become incredibly fragile.

So there you go! :D