Finished North American Model Horse Nationals Auction Donation

These are the finished
photos of my 2009 North American Model Horse Nationals Auction donation. I also added a "Hand of Hamesh" horse "necklace" that one can put on their horse to ward off the evil eye. I originally saw a necklace like this on an arabian in a photo of in Arabian Horse World and I've wanted to make one ever since! :-)

These are the descriptions:

Green and Yellow Native Arabian Halter

This halter was hand woven on a bead
loom. IT is lined with real professionally dyed leather so that it will not mark up your model. It features 17 Hand made, Real silver "sharks teeth" that have been coated to retard tarnishing. The Cowrie shells and "flower" medallions were all hand made using leather, sculpey and marble beads. The beads on either side of the halter above the tassels are also real silver that has been sealed. The tassels on the end of the halter on each side were hand wrapped. It fits the Breyer Huckleberry Bey Mold and similar sized models.

Arabian Show Halter

This arabian show halter features all real silver beads, plates and conchos that have been sealed to retard tarnishing. The Conchos were hand made by me and feature real swarovski crystals. The thin noseband is also real silver and patterned after the real show halters seen in today's arabian show rings. The halter also has a tiny, working roller buckle at the poll with two keepers. This halter fits the Breyer Huckleberry bey and similar sized heads.

Woven knot and silver show halter

This halter has real silver, hand etched plates, real swarovski crystals, and real woven, two colored turks head knots. It also boasts real silver hand made buckles, keepers, tips and accents on the throatlatch. It is five way adjustable and has a basketweaved crown
piece. The matching lead will run through the halter rings and out the bottom just like the real thing. It fits the Breyer Lady Phase and similar sized heads.

Hand of Hamesh

The Hand of Hamesh is used to block the "Evil Eye" and be under the protection of "The Hand of God". IT's used on horses as a good luck symbol. This necklace was made using real lapis lazuli and the "hand" itself is real silver and was hand made. The crystal is a swarovski crystal.

PICTURES of the NAN Donation!

This year's theme was proposed to me by Barb Ness.. She was thinking about three kinds of performance halters that folks could have and do an "instant" showmanship package!

 

 

I settled on the color green, since it's one of my favorite colors and it's a very popular color for tack right now. Not too flashy but flashy enough to be appealing :-)

 

 

The First halter, is an all silver, adjustable arabian show halter with hand made silver conchos. It fits the Breyer Huckleberry Bey Mold and as you can see, it'll fit a Khemo resin nicely. All silver has been coated so that it doesn't tarnish, and the crystals on the halter are real swarovskis.

 

 

The next halter is a hand woven native arabian halter. This halter has wrapped tassles on each side, hand made "cowrie shells" and real silver, hand made sharks teeth. (Those of you on facebook know I've been complaining about how these suckers like to fly across the room, never to be seen again.) All silver has been coated to retard tarnishing so the sharks teeth will stay nice for you for some time to come.

 

 

The last halter is a woven knot and will have western silver plates on the side pieces and on the noseband. The buckles, and keepers on this halter are REAL Silver! And the buckles are just as sturdy as the Rio Rondo Pewter buckles. I used a heavier gague silver this time so that they could withstand some use! This halter will come with a lead and fits the Lady Phase Mold.

 

 

THank you to Barb who is giving me an extra week to get this all finished!!!

soooooooooooooooooooooooo Close!

I'm so close to done on my NAN donation! THank goodness for the long weekend! Hopefully I'll have more time in the studio each night and be able to work. RJ is no longer woken up by my dremeling which is wonderful!! I do a lot of dremel work... All will be revealed monday or tuesday of next week!

Down to the wire...

My poor Munchkin is sick again today so he stayed home from daycare. We have a dr's appt this afternoon. I hope that his ear infections haven't come back.. the poor guy.. he's teething on top of it all : /

Theser are in progress pictures of the last two halters I'm trying to finish up for my NAN Donation. THe Native halter WILL be finished, the western halter is a "hope against hope"..

Some Progress on the NAN Native Halter......

I have gotten some things done on my NAN Donation Native Halter. First of all, I've gotten it pieced together and the backing on the halter itself. I was going to use ribbon, but in the past I've had ribbon come unglued from the back of the halter. This time I used some leather lacing and that seemed to work out great!

Above, next to the dime, you'll see a tiny "sharks tooth" decoration for the halter. Yes, I'm making my own sharks teeth out of silver. I know that one can buy this stuff from Rio Rondo but I really want this halter to be made by me as much as possible. In fact thats my goal for future miniature tack. The more I make it myself, the more "authentic" I feel it becomes.

The first time I made these, I wanted to pull my hair out! I've gotten a lot more adept with the dremel since then and these aren't taking me nearly as long. The hard part is getting a hole at the top because I don't own a drill press.

I'm hoping against hope I can eek out a western show halter but it's going to be close..

I am still not getting a whole lot of sleep thanks to munchkin. Instead of sleeping for about 12 hours overnight, he only sleeps eight yet we can't get him to stay up past 7pm.
So my husband and I are definitely seriously sleep deficient..

If you haven't seen it yet, Nicanor, a full younger brother to Barbaro broke his maiden in his forth start and won by 15 lengths! Yes, I'm a sap, and I cried when I watched the video.. He had his ears up the whole way on the backstretch and was really enjoying himself on the grass! Watch it here: http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/50753/barbaros-brother-nicanor-breaks-maiden-by-15

I Hope that he has a long and successful career as both a racehorse and a sire!

More Sneak Peeks

Still coming along slowly but surely. This week is a whirl wind of Drs appointments and we're going out of town so I won't have a lot of time in the studio. I plan to make next week "Studio" week so that I can get my NAN donation done..

Congratulations Mine that Bird!

http://www.horsephotos.com/watermark.jsp?photoID=99236

$9500 Maiden Claimer by Birdstone, Mine That Bird, and Jockey Calvin Borel (Bo-rail) won the Kentucky Derby Today in Fine style, going away! Congratulations to all of his connections!

Real Quick! Kentucky Oaks Video

If you haven't seen the 2009 Kentucky Oaks Video, I would highly recommend it. Rachel Alexandra won by 20 1/4th lengths. It's one of the most impressive wins I've ever seen!!

http://www.kentuckyoaks.com/2009/videos

Some progress on Kentucky Oaks Day

I actually made some progress on the native arabian halter here in Kentucky Oaks Day. Please forgive the shaky picture I didn't get a lot of sleep last night thanks to this cold so I have a lot of caffeine in my system..

Sadly Zenyatta Scratched because the track was a bit off, so we didn't get to see that brilliant filly run in one of the undercard races. I'm pulling for Rachel Alexandra in the oaks!