March is halfway over, wait, WHAT?

The last few months have sped by.  January was mostly just one or all of us being sick.  Our puppy Callie approved of the extra snuggle time.

In February, my little girl turned four, and look what she got!

She's been riding Jasper more, although some days she says "He's too big for me."

In which case she gets to ride Melissa the pony, and sometimes she gets to go for a trail ride with me.

Emma and Rob even joined us for a walk, but I doubt this will happen much when the Florida summer heat and humidity arrives.

Like every good horsewomen in training, Rylie's getting a well rounded barn education.  Just try to pick up a pile she's working on, and you'll hear "Hey! That's my pile!"

Emma's favorite activity while the big girls clean stalls, making sure Jasper stays in treats.  As you can imagine, Jasper adores Emma.

I've been spending more time at the barn than I have since Buddy died, and I'm loving every minute. 

My barn family threw me a great party for my birthday last weekend, complete with glitter bomb (I'm STILL finding glitter, guys, seriously).

We got rained on, but had fun doing some jumping and taking a shorter trail ride in the evening.

The whole weekend was full of horse time, including a great evening ride up to the lake with Jamie.

This is my favorite view: Horse ears, check. Water, check. Green tree line, check. Blue sky, check. Heaven.

My birthday gift to myself, an LED breast collar, IT'S SO COOL.  Now to bring it to the model world, it's on my to do list.  

The dogs will help, they say.

Emma and Rylie like to help when I'm working, they work on getting out every toy they own.  Seriously, this took 20 minutes:

As another gift to Rylie, we took a trip to Disney World.....

This is my favorite photo of the trip.  I'm still that horse loving little girl inside, who can't help but get excited at the sight of any and all horse related things.

I've been making a LOT of custom halters recently, and I've got a few new designs.  Here is Roy from the barn modeling a new feather halter I made, he's got the most fabulous mane I've ever seen, seriously it goes past his neck.

 His mom Stacy loves him, Roy's a real sweetheart in addition to being so handsome.

There is my overdue update! :)

FINALLY! I CAN SPILL!

I can't contain my excitement! I was commissioned by Breyer this year to make a barrel racing saddle set, and after months of waiting, I'm so excited to see the final product!

Photo on Breyer's Website

 Here are the prototypes I made for the creation of this set:

I can't wait to buy one of these at my local tack store! It looks like Breyer's version is really close to the original, and I'm so excited to see it in person!

Custom Halters & Horse Love

As many of you know, I started making custom horse halters in 2016.  The first one was for my horse love, Jasper. I lease him, and he's got to be one of the best horses I've ridden, period.  He's filled a whole that hasn't really been filled since my paint gelding died in 2012.

I recently made him another fancy halter, and thanks to my father-in-law (I never have enough hands to bring my camera AND the kids), I have a great photo of him with my eldest sporting his new one:

This photo makes my heart melt.

The halters have been a joy to see on the ponies at my barn, so much of what I normally make gets shipped and I never see it again.  I am selling them in my Etsy store now.

I sold enough over Black Friday/Christmas, that I decided to let my creative juices flow a bit more and make some variations. "Magic" is a beautiful black horse at the barn that has become a favorite model of mine:

I also picked on him to model the new sports team halters.  I'm from Seattle in case you couldn't tell, so here's the 12th "horse":

 I took these with my 50mm, and I couldn't get far enough away from him to take the picture before he would walk right back up to me, such a love.

 I made this halter for a friend of a friend at the barn, who has a beautiful dun, and really love the basket weave with rivets.  I just bought some turquoise rivets I'm excited to try, too!

 I also made this custom "rebel" style halter for my friend Melissa at my barn.

 Ticki Ticki is a down to earth little Peruvian Paso buckskin mare at my barn, who also got an updated halter with some bling.

 Most horses at my barn have them now, and I love riding up ahead to take photos like this, all four horses have RF Tack halters on!

Just in case you need a reason to visit Florida in January, it's 75 degrees everyday and sunny.  Perfect riding weather:

 The only things we love more than the weather around here are our horses.

I am writing this down so you can all remind me in July that this is still a good place to live, when it's 95 degrees with 95% humidity. 

Sebastian just moved here from Washington, and while he's enjoying the winter, I'm not sure how this big black Clydesdale is going to like our Summer. 

Australian Light Horse Set - Part 2

Making the Australian Light Horse set also required me to get creative and make some items more rarely seen in the model horse world.  Swords, scabbards, rifles, and unique saddle bags. Starting with the sword, I started with the handle. I carved it from some hard craft wood, and shaped some tin coated steel sheet metal drilling a hole with a #60 drill bit into the metal and wood in preparation for my tiny screw and washer.

 I made the shaft of the sword from a piece of aluminum tubing, crimped and sanded to fit the correct shape.  I also drilled a slot into the wood for secure fastening.

 I fit it into some 1/8" brass tubing for a scabbard. I added two brass rings at the top (once piece with two loops on either end), to prevent it from sliding through the scabbard frog on the horse shoe case, by making a slot in the back for the piece to fit into.

 Next was the rifle...

More aluminum tubing...

 I also made a pair of "wallet" saddle bags..

 Makes me want to go riding...