Model Horse Fun

Model Zebras

2012-01-13T08:54:00.000-08:00

Do you like "other equines" as well as model horses - model zebras, donkeys and mules, for example? I like donkeys and mules, and the zebras are interesting too. Candace Liddy just released Eukanuba and Zuka, two Stablemate scale Zebras through Equin Art Creations, plus she's got two custom ones I posted to MHSP for sale that are beautifully painted and will ship out within a day or two of your order.

So I don't know if you love zebras or not, but the herd just arrived over at my company, EquinArt Creations. Stop by!

How Much Is My Breyer Worth?

2012-01-11T09:04:00.000-08:00

Rare Breyer? You decide!

It's a popular question. I've seen idiotic (not unrealistic - IDIOTIC) prices on Breyers at antique malls, haven't you? You know what I mean - that lovely palomino FAS with a price tag for $100 and marked as a 'rare antique Breyer'. Um, yeah, sure and I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Much as I love my FAS conga line, it's time to get realistic.

Value is a tricky thing, though. Horse model values can fluctuate wildly. Ask anyone who buys Artist Resins - a resin can be 'hot' one moment and then plunge in value, and vice versa. We sold Maggie Bennett's Clause resin, her first Traditional scale release, for an average price back around 2005-2006. But due to production problems we had to stop the release at just 17 casts and I think the last cast was in pieces. So anyone who owns a Claude, hang onto him. Not only is he an incredible sculpture, he is probably worth a lot more now than what you paid for from EquinArt Creations back in 2005 or 2006.

The same thing goes for Breyers. Old doesn't mean valuable. Old can mean common, as in the company produced thousands of them for the toy market and there are still thousands out there. Or it can mean that something produced last year is worth a lot of money because only 10 were made as a Breyerfest thank you or something. You never know!

Please enjoy my latest article on horse models, published today on Hub Pages: How Much Is My Breyer Horse Worth?

And if you enjoy the article, do check out The Model Horse Quarterly, my new quarterly book quality publication. Features more of my articles plus contributions from Cindy Neuhaus, Karen Dietrich and more.

New Schleich Model Horse and Happy Coincidences

2012-01-03T09:37:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture of my latest acquisition, a really neat Schleich jumper set. The rider looks like he's not only jumping ahead of the horse but climbing over his ears to check out the fence before the horse gets there, but no matter; I love this piece. It's really a happy coincidence. I drove into town last night for choir practice at my church and felt like I should stop at Tractor Supply to check out the after Christmas sales. They only carry Breyer model horses around Christmas, and I thought that if any were on sale I'd pick up a few. To my happy delight, I found a four package of Stablemates, the last one, on sale. But I also walked over to check out the Schleich display. It was picked clean as you can expect a week after Christmas, but one box, hidden low on the shelf caught my eye, and there was this really neat jumper set. The pieces all come apart, and although I can't figure out what you would do with them once they're apart, I think if you had the other fences you can make a neat course of fences and an arena scene with these model horses.

Here's the happy coincidence. Three days ago, a friend whose horse I used to groom and ride found me again through Facebook, just about 20 years after we lost touch. And guess what? She works at a jumper barn!

Now to find a place for this set....

The Model Horse Quarterly Is Available!

2011-12-29T09:36:00.000-08:00

A few days early, but happy holidays - The Model Horse Quarterly is now available!

Hope you enjoy it. I'm looking forward to creating the next issue and am already mulling over articles. I welcome your ideas, too, so contact me about what you'd like to read in the MHQ.

All copies are printed and fulfilled through my publisher, Lulu.com.

You choose the version you want -

Color, paperback printed perfect bound journal (like a book)
Black and white paperback printed
Adobe Acrobat eBook

Head on over to EquinArt Creations for the details - www.equinartcreations.com

Anyone wishing to submit articles or photos, they are welcome. I am especially looking for a cover photo!

Tiny Treasures Collecting Micro Mini Model Horses

2011-12-26T11:03:00.000-08:00

Tiny Treasures - Collecting Micro Mini Model Horses, my new book for model horse collectors, is now available! You can order your printed copies in color or black and white, or download the eBook.

I hope you enjoy it!

I wanted to publicly thank the following people for their help and support in making this book happen -

Katrina Michaels, for the how-to articles
Candace Liddy - what can I say? Not only is she one of the best equine artists in the world, she is also an incredibly generous person. Candace dug out her prototypes for the original Creata micro mini line of model horses (now the Breyer Mini Whinnies) and took photos of them, painstakingly labeling them for me. She is a friend and a generous person. Thank you Candace!
Kollean Gouyton - Kollean shares her photos SO generously. Thank you Kollean!
Maggie Bennett, Donna Sundlbad (for the encouragement) and so many collectors who urged me to update the original book.

Tiny Treasures: Collecting Micro Mini Model Horses is fulfilled by my publisher, Lulu. Visit EquinArt Creations and click the button for the book you are interested in. You can see a preview on their site and buy it there.

My micro minis...Artist Resins by Maggie Bennett, painted by Kollean Gouyton.

Breyer Mini Whinnies.

Another of my micro minis...he is less than half an inch tall

I'm Still a Sucker for a Ribbon

2011-12-20T11:06:00.000-08:00

...and for sharing my ribbons. I've got my two second place ribbons from the Five County Fair, won for my peppers and beets, hanging in the pantry next to the prize-winning canned goods. And now I share with you my latest win: TOPSA Micro Mini Reserve Color Champion - Year End Show!

Whoo hoo!

This little fellow is just one inch tall. He is the Maggie Bennett sculpted pewter Andalusian stallion in the Spanish walk, painted into a beautiful dappled gray by my friend Kollean Gouyton of Stone Wolf Creations.

Just when my new book, Tiny Treasures - Collecting Micro Minis, is coming out any day now, my little micro mini wins a nifty Reserve Champion at the Year End Show.

What a great Christmas present!

Yes, I'm still a sucker for a rosette....virtual or real....

Sneak Peek at The Model Horse Quarterly

2011-12-06T17:08:00.000-08:00

Back cover (left) featuring Aten Khamen by Candace Liddy; front, featuring Houdini from The Lakeshore Collection

Sample page - feature article on The Lakeshore Collection by Cindy Neuhaus

Sample page - interview with Karen Dietrich and photos showing model horse restoration

I had a feeling The Model Horse Quarterly would pique people's interest, but not this much! I had two telephone calls today from collectors who'd heard about it and wanted to subscribe...plus several emails asking the same question! Well, here's the sneak peek at the final cover (pretend it's a book laying flat - the black rearing Arabian is Aten Khamen and he is on the back). The issue is "put to bed" as journalists say and at the printer's. I am waiting for the proof or test copy. Once I'm sure it is printing correctly, I will get copies printed up.

So far we look on target for a January launch date for the new publication. A few people have asked me if it is like a magazine or a book. I would say it is somewhat closer to a quarterly book than a simple magazine like Just About Horses. In fact, it's probably not like anything you have ever seen before. The printing quality, paper and covers will be like a paperback book, with lots of information for new collectors and experienced hobbyists alike inside.

The first issue features an overview of the model horse hobby, a short summary of major model horse manufacturers, and the feature cover story on The Lakeshore Collection model horses. Then we have information from Breyer on their new collector programs for 2012, plus an interview with model horse restoration artist Karen Dietrich and a Shopper's Guide.

For more information on The Model Horse Quarterly, visit EquinArt Creations, here -

The Model Horse Quarterly.

And stay tuned. I'll have prices and order information up soon. Promise!

Saying Goodbye to Just About Horses

2011-11-30T10:16:00.000-08:00

Cover of the new Model Horse Quarterly

I finally received my last issue of Just About Horses in the mail today, and it was with some mixed feelings that I opened the familiar model horse hobby magazine published by Breyer. JAH was the reason I learned about the entire hobby of model horse collecting in the first place back in 1978.

I remember the day like it was yesterday. I'd bought a model I'd craved forever - the mahogany bay Proud Arabian stallion. He's still in my china cabinet in my office where I keep my model horse collection. I have carried that model everywhere I've moved, and he is still one of my favorites. Inside the brown and tan Breyer box was a Breyer catalog. I couldn't stop reading it. At the back was an ad for a magazine about model horses. I ran to my dad with my allowance and asked him for a check. I remember how surprised he was that a third grader would even KNOW what a check was, but I did, and I wanted one to get that magazine.

When it came, I read it so many times the pages turned soft and frayed around the edges.

Several years later, when as a teenager I wanted to become a magazine writer, I sent an article into Just About Horses. It was called "Good Mail Manners" and described etiquette for model horse collectors. In those pre-Internet days, all transactions were conducted by snail mail. I explained what all the acronyms meant in ads and how to correspond with fellow collectors in a friendly way.

Imagine my surprise and delight when a business letter arrived in the mail a few weeks later - with a check for $25! It was my first official magazine "sale". I was 15 years old. A week after that a big box of sample copies arrived in the mail. I felt like I was in heaven. I kept looking at my byline - I was an official, published author.

Today, holding that last issue of JAH in my hands, I felt like I was saying goodbye to an old friend. I've been critical of the magazine of late, it is true. And I well understand the business decisions that probably led to their decision to shut down the print magazine. Their young collectors are finding out about the hobby online, not in print materials. Kids raised in the internet age think first of Googling something they want to know and lastly about looking at something in print.

I wish Breyer well on their new website and new business models. And, because I am among the older generation who grew up with paper...and still loves to feel a book in my hands...I am launching the Model Horse Quarterly, a new print publication scheduled to launch in January. The first issue is almost complete. Here is the cover. I hope that when it is finally ready for sale, you will enjoy it too.

It makes me think of that day, a long time ago in 1979, when I held my first copy of JAH in my hands....

Here is the cover - front and back (like a book open and face down on your desk)

Model Horse Hobby

2011-11-16T13:19:00.000-08:00

One of the things I try to do as often as I can is introduce the model horse hobby to people who might not be aware of it. People see my model collection and their eyes light up. It gives them such joy and I heard stories about Misty, Breyers long gone, long ago playthings that people gave up years ago. Why do we give up things that give us joy? We need to grow up, but not out, of our childhoods. Model horses connect me to real horses, to my creative side and to my imagination. I am so glad I never "grew out" of my love for model horses!

I wrote the following article and published it today on Hub Pages. I hope you enjoy it.

Oh, and this one is also going into The Model Horse Quarterly, my new magazine...due out in a few weeks!

An Introduction to the Model Horse Hobby

Whatever Happened to a Nice Bay Horse?

2011-11-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

Circa 1990, nerdy glasses and all - me and my old chestnut horse!

Now it's all about COLOR. What do you think?

Many years ago, all you saw in the model horse show ring among customized horse models were plain Janes - bays, browns, chestnuts, blacks. If someone had a nice palomino we'd ooh and ah. A nice Appaloosa? The painter was a genius. Don't even talk to me about dappled grays. I saw so many blobs and circles of paint passing for dappled grays back in the 1970s it would make your head spin.

As I recall, it was that way in the real horse world too - although dappled grays looked a tad nicer! Whatever barns I rode at during the 1980s and 1990s on Long Island, you saw lots of chestnuts and bays, the occasional gray, and rarely, a paint, Appaloosa or palomino.

I knew two roans in all my riding days back on Long Island. My friend Janet's horse, a Quarter Horse named Pumpkin, was a beautiful sorrel roan that looked like a pumpkin color. Gentleman Jack was a fantastic, comfortable cantering couch kind of school horse I leased and rode who was a most unusual bay roan.

Now today everywhere I look, model horse people crave color. It seems to be the fad and trend among real horses, too! Roans, rabicanos, dilute creams, etc etc etc - I don't even know what half of these colors mean.

I rode English, and English riders are conservative. The big palomino horse I rode in the early 1990s into equitation classes always attracted tons of attention (and compliments - he was spooky as spooky could be, but boy was he big, bold and beautiful). Maybe that's why people are gravitating towards color?

But I have to laugh. I contacted a painting artist about prices to paint some of my resins, and she was quick to try to upsell me on a roan. Or perhaps a nice tobiano? No thanks, I said, I just want a beautiful chestnut color. She seemed so disappointed. Maybe that's because the tricky colors are more fun to paint?

What do you think about the craze on customized horses for color? Do you love the colorful model horses - the paints, the Appy, the rabicanos and what not - or do like the traditional colors?

Model Horse Books and Magazines Coming Soon

2011-10-19T06:18:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know that I wrote for About.com for the past year about model horses, and published well over 150 articles ranging from an introduction to the hobby to hairing techniques for Breyers. My contract with About ended in September, and since then I have been hard at work planning three new model horse books and getting ready to launch the Model Horse Quarterly, a new hobby magazine.

Micro Mini Model Horses
I'm re-releasing Tiny Treasures: The World of Micro Mini Model Horses as two books, hopefully by the end of November. I've drastically overhauled the book, especially the section on the original Creata model horses, after discovering that my good friend Candace Liddy still had all the prototypes, unreleased original models, and tons of Creata history locked up in her studio. What a find! She helped me so much with the book by photographing tons of original painted prototypes and even some never-before seen micro minis from Creata. So the new book will have over 20 pages of color photographs of the original micro minis.

The second book takes the articles by Katrina Michaels and myself on all sorts of micro mini crafts - painting, prepping the pewter ones, and new articles by me on making props for micros and photo showing backgrounds and stuff - and breaks it into a second "How to" book.

I hope you enjoy them both. My target publication dates for both are November 30, but it depends on my full time works schedule and committments.

The Lakeshore Collection Model Horse Guide
I don't know about you but I love the Breyer model horse collector's guides and find them invaluable. So when I approached another good model horse friend, Cindy Neuhaus, and said, "Hey, let's do a collector's guide to The Lakeshore Horses!" she was all for it. Cindy provided pictures and this one is going to be a huge reference volume of all the gorgeous, glorious china Lakeshore horses you can collect, from the original limited edition colors to the beautiful Raku models produced as part of the Art of Fire line. I don't know when this book will be done, but probably not until early 2012.

The Model Horse Quarterly
Don't forget The Model Horse Quarterly. It's a sort of hybrid between a magazine and a book that I'll be producing four times per year, starting in January. Each issue will be based around a theme and will include articles, photos, ads and more. I'm keeping advertising FREE for 2012 until we know about how many people buy it; classified ads will be free for as long as I can keep them that way. The magazine/book will be available in paperback full color, paperback black and white, and Adobe Acrobat PDF form for folks on a budget. Learn more here - The Model Horse Quarterly.

So lots of great stuff flowing from my computer keyboard and into publication soon.

Check back and bookmark the EquinArt Creations website for details and updates.

New Model Horse Magazine

2011-10-04T07:58:00.000-07:00

My writing for About.com about model horses ended in September, but as luck would have it, at almost the same moment I received several emails from collectors who said, "Are you going to start a model horse hobby magazine? You would be the perfect person to do it!"

I was reluctant to say yes at first. When I was a kid, I published a little photocopied magazine for model horse collectors. It was a lot of work and when I stopped publication I felt bad, like I let people down.

Today is a different story, however. With over 20 years of professional writing and editing experience (along with marketing experience) and more years than I can count of model horse collecting experience, I think I'm in a better position now to publish such a periodical than I was when I was 13. (Hey, ya think?)

So.....the Model Horse Quarterly is born.

It will be 32 pages or more to start with, and will be ready for purchase by January 2012. Here's the neat thing though: I can offer it for sale in three versions. Full color print, black and white print, or color PDF (to download and read on your computer.) Better still, you can pay for EACH issue separately. So let's say you're mad about collecting Beswicks, and I have a great issue on Beswick models. You can buy that one as a full color printed book and pay a bit more. But the next issue it's all about tack making, and while that interests you, you're not as crazy about it as Beswicks. For that issue, YOU choose to pay and download the PDF only.

It's that simple!

So far, Holly Lenz has designed the logo. Cindy Neuhaus will contribute updates on The Lakeshore Collection. Kollean Gouyton said she's good at making up puzzles, so I've asked her to put on her thinking cap and come up with some fun stuff. I've asked a few collectors to contribute articles and photos. Advertisements will be FREE for the first issue or two, but I am limiting the ads to 10 per issue.

For more information, visit The Model Horse Quarterly. Book mark the EquinArt Creations website and check back frequently for updates, or join our email list and Facebook pages.

Zebras, Mules and Donkeys Oh My!

2011-09-27T11:34:00.000-07:00

It used to be that model horse meant...well, model horse. Now, however, collectors have expanded the definition to include equines of all, er, stripes!

We have mules such as....

Festus by Michelle Platt

Adelaide


Locked and Loaded

NOW WE HAVE ZEBRAS!

Eukanuba and Zuka by Candace Liddy

EquinArt Creations will be selling two ZEBRA Artist Resins by Candace Liddy. They should be up on our website by week's end.

Now that's a 'horse' of a different color!

(Okay, any more bad puns?)

Breyer Famous Racehorse Horse Models

2011-09-20T06:27:00.000-07:00

I grew up across town from Belmont race track, and my dad was one of countless auxiliary policemen who directed traffic on Plainfield Avenue in Floral Park on the day of the Belmont stakes. I was too young to remember the day Secretariat won the Belmont and the Triple Crown, but that race footage never ceases to make me cry. I don't know why. I watch the race and I get choked up. There's a moment when the jockey looks back over his shoulder at the incredible distance between Big Red and the next closest horse, and my throat tightens and tears burn in my eyes. It is the most moving image for me - the horse, just surging ahead, running, no one even close. Many years later, I did some volunteer work with a Thoroughbred rescue organization and attended a Board meeting at Belmont. I got to walk among the barns and the back stretch and that was a thrill, too.

To honor the sport of kings, I've begun a series of articles on Breyer Thoroughbred race horse models - Secretariat, Breyer horse model of the great Big Red, and Zenyatta, in both horse model and Christmas ornament form. Learn more about them here. Click the links below. As always, please feel free to share these links with others, but please don't reprint the articles verbatin.

Secretariat Champion Thoroughbred - Breyer Secretariat Model

Collecting Zenyatta Memorabilia - Breyer Horse Model and Christmas Ornament

Thank you to Kollean Gouyton for the photos and to Breyer Animal Creations for the Zenyatta photos.

Model Horse Round Up

2011-09-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

Too much going on here right now...yikes! I just completed three new articles for About.com on model horses, and I'll post links soon. I'm working on two article series this fall - first, interviews and photo essays with various model horse artists. I think you will really enjoy the tips and beautiful photos they are sharing! Anne Field will share her dolls and doll making tips with you. Anne's work was part of the 2010 WEG display commissioned by Breyer at the Kentucky Horse Park, and her dolls are just stunning. I can't even begin to imagine the amount of hours she puts into each one. They are truly unique creations and she has some great tips for readers too. Next up is Mindy Berg. I met Mindy at Breyerfest in 2008 and hit it off with her immediately. Her painting is beautiful, and I'm interviewing Mindy about her work and model horse activities, then will feature her painted pieces in an accompanying essay. Last up will be Karen Dietrich, showing you restoration work on a Breyer. Hopefully all of these lovely gals will be available to finish the interviews! Anne's will be ready this week, depending on when my editor approves the last one, and Mindy's will follow quickly behind that one.

I am also working on a series of articles about Breyer's Thoroughbred model horses, starting with everyone's favorite giant - Zenyatta. Breyer's marketing and communications team has been very helpful and provided me with some photos and information. Kollean Gouyton also graciously shared more photos of her 5,000+ model horse collection too. Those articles should be finished by the end of September.

I raided my local Dollar Tree this weekend and came home with some Christmas collectible accessories, those little mini trees and such that they sell with model houses. They aren't in scale with our own light up village set that we put up every year but I saw at once that they were in scale with my micro minis and Stablemates. I hope to have a new winter scene to share with everyone soon.

I've been busy fumbling my way through tack making projects, getting glue everywhere and cursing my obsession with the miniature equines. I should just try making full size tack and be done with it - it would probably be easier. Since my tack making projects always look like a kindergartener made them, when I do finally share my step by step instructions (which WORK if you have TALENT unlike me :( ) I'll probably borrow someone else's pictures, with their permission of course, to go with them.

Over at EquinArt Creations, my model horse company, I've got some great new horse models for you, lots of your old favorites, and oh did I mention a SALE? Yes, sale! Selected items are on sale. It's like a treasure hunt. Go and look for the picture of balloons...that means something is on sale. Enjoy!

Keep an eye out for links to the new articles here on this blog as well as on my Facebook pages. Be sure to bookmark About.com and watch for them too.

Happy collecting!

Spotlight on Artist Resin Models: Adelaide by Michelle Platt

2011-09-05T12:10:00.000-07:00

Adelaide is a great mule resin by Michelle Platt, and newly offered for sale at my company, EquinArt Creations. Michelle seems to have a gift for conveying mules. Some people make mules rather cartoonish, but not Michelle. Her mule sculptures capture their distinctive personalities as well as the features that make long-ear lovers enjoy their mules so much. Michelle's first Artist Resin mule sculpture, Festus, remains one of her most popular works among model horse collectors, and I'm guessing Adelaide won't be far behind. She's a jenny draft mule with her head turned, as if biting a fly, or maybe questioning her owner's request! Adelaide is Breyer Traditional scale, cast by Barry Moore at Laf N Bear Casting (Lynne Fraley's casting group) and ready to ship now, with payment in full.

Learn more about Adelaide, view more pictures, or order a copy, click here.

Happy Anniversary, EquinArt Creations!

2011-09-01T07:59:00.000-07:00

Today is a special day for me. Today EquinArt Creations, my model horse company, turns 7 years old. We launched our first resin, Innocence, on this day in 2004, and received our first order, so I count September 1 as our anniversary.

There were people who said to me, "What do you know about opening a business?"

There were people who said, "It can't be done. You can't make a business out of model horses!"

Listen, when people tell you that you can't do something - do it anyway. When people ask you, "Who are you to [fill in the blank]" - DO IT ANYWAY.

If you love something, if your heart tells you to proceed with an idea, do it. (Be smart about it though - don't use that as an excuse to take foolish risks with your career, money or personal life.) I didn't quit my day job and still work on other projects even though I'm a full time freelancer now. In 2004, I used to get up at 5 am and work at EquinArt Creations until 7 am, then hastily don my business clothes and race out the door to my full time job at a big publisher where I worked full time as a marketing manager. Those were long days getting my business started, but I wouldn't trade them for all the world.

What makes a model horse business a success? I've got one word to answer that question: YOU. You, my customers, artists and friends, you make it successful. I'm glad that seven years after I saw the first sale ding into my inbox, I'm still able to do something every day that I love, namely share the beauty and fun of model horse collecting with the public and support artists with my business skills so they can enjoy the creative process.

Thank you for seven years of service, which is our motto for the month of September.

We'll be running specials over on the EquinArt Creations website to celebrate, and have a lot of great stuff coming your way, but I wanted to take this moment to say a very heartfelt thank you to you all.

How to Make an English Saddle Pad

2011-09-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

Vintage English saddle made by Kathy Wells

Need a quick and easy saddle pad for your Breyer horses? You can make one like this one, pictured here with my vintage Kathy Wells Traditional scale hunt seat saddle, out of felt. The trick is to use your saddle as a template but increase the size of the template by a few millimeters. A standard English show pad extends a few inches beyond the leather saddle, and the white fleece sort of frames the brown leather while providing padding and comfort to the horse. Saddle pads under English saddles are absolutely essential. They wick away sweat and prevent chafing and saddle sores. So make sure your saddle pads fit your Breyers, even if they can't get saddle sores!

My latest article for About.com on How to Make a Felt Saddle Pad for English Saddles can be read by clicking the underlined article title.

Please DO share the link on your social networks, Facebook, Model Horse Blab or whatever...the more readers, the better and the more we can promote this fun and fantastic hobby.

Making Model Horse Tack

2011-08-30T05:15:00.000-07:00

Traditional scale saddle in my collection, made by Kathy Wells

Now that things have settled down here, with earthquakes, hurricanes and nasty storms behind us, it's time for some model horse fun - and new tack making projects! I made tack many years ago, and enjoy it very much. When I had my own horse, I liked nothing better than grooming and cleaning tack. Yeah, I was weird! I used to take home my horse's bridle, take it all apart, and spend hours cleaning it in the basement, hanging the cheek pieces, nose band, brow band and reins over the wash line in the basement so that I could soap them up with Murphy's Oil Soap and then treat them with some leather conditioner. I love shopping for tack and there is nothing better than finding a great saddle. My favorite saddle of all time was a 1960s Kieffer All Purpose saddle with a deep seat and knee rolls. It was my horse's saddle, passed along to whoever leased him, and that was a very comfortable saddle.

Carrie Olguin's tack making books are the best for showing you how to make model horse tack. Not only does she give you step by step instructions, there are photos of everything, plus patterns to use. I own the Western saddle book and ordered the English saddle book yesterday. I also bought a bridle-making kit from Melody Snow. The kits looks great but I wish I'd bought a Traditional scale kit; I bought a Classic scale kit, and my hands can't handle the tiny details of the Classic scale buckles like they used to.

I've begin writing a new series of articles on tack making for About.com. I hope you enjoy them. It's been a long time since I made tack, and it has been fun pulling out scraps of leather lacing and my pliers and such and working again with leather. I'll share photos of my creations as I work on them. My next project is to make saddle trees out of Sculpey clay and photograph them for an article for About.com. Stay tuned!

New article:

Basic Supplies Needed for Making Model Horse Tack

Carrie Olguin's tack making books - recommended:

Artist Resins, Chinas and Earthquakes Don't Mix

2011-08-24T12:06:00.000-07:00


Before - live show quality

These are before and after images of my favorite Artist Resin model horse - Othello is his show name, but he is an Aten Khamen Tradtional rearing Arabian by Candace Liddy. I sell this model through our company, EquinArt Creations, and he is stunning. Unfortunately, he is a heavy solid resin, and during the 5.9 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday, he was one of many horse models in the china cabinet in my office that literally took a swan dive off the top. I have never seen models tossed around like that. Luckily, most of the ones that fell really far were my Collecta plastic models, a few Schleich horses and animals, and Breyers. I had one gorgeous Breyer Stablemate dressage horse that now has two broken ears. My Sheri Rhodes Treasure resin survived although it took a nasty fall out of the cabinet, too. Paint wasn't even chipped.

Earthquake damage from Tuesday's quake in VA. I live about 70 miles from the epicenter.

The right leg is bent at a 45 degree angle. It's supposed to be straight!

Not so the Aten Khamen. There are thick steel wires in the front legs and they are bent at a 45 degree angle. I tried bending them back and I couldn't budge them. How much force did it take to bend them like that?

I've got a Wade-Northlight china/resin that also took a hit, with a broken ear tip on that guy, too. Luckily I found the ear and I may be able to glue it.

But the Aten. Ugh. Earthquakes and Artist Resin horse models don't mix!!!

Three New Model Horse Articles with Plenty of Pictures

2011-08-11T03:39:00.000-07:00


(C) 2011 by Breyer Animal Creations.

I've published three new articles to About.com - each with either links to big articles with plenty of color pictures, or photo essays about model horses. Special thanks to the folks in Breyer's marketing and communications department for the images of the 2011 Holiday collectibles, to Dianne Teachworth for the 1997-2009 Holiday Horse photos, and to all the collectors who shared their Halloween horse photos with my readers. Click the links below to enjoy the articles.

Breyer Halloween Horse Models - Collect or Create Your Own Spooky Model Horses

2011 Breyer Holiday Horses, Ornaments and Special Collectibles

Collectible Breyer Holiday Horse Models and Accessories

To Treasure Hunt or Not? That Is the Question

2011-08-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

So I'll confess, I'm sorely tempted by Breyer's "Weather Girl" horse model. And the marketer in me (I'm a marketing manager by profession, as well as a writer) loves the whole notion of the Treasure Hunt models. Issue three, sell them randomly, collect them all! Since I covet the palomino Weather Girl and the black second, I'm sure to get the pinto one. That's the story of my life. Yearn for that Reggie Jackson baseball card in the package of Topps trading cards, get the same darned never-heard-of-him player over and over again.

At $49.99 a pop, Weather Girls ain't cheap. Yet she really is a stunning sculpture, and I can easily convince myself that I haven't bought a "new" (aka, sculpted in the last decade mold) Breyer in ages. I tend to go for the classic Christian Hess or Maureen Love sculpted beauties, but I tell you, Weather Girl has me tempted.

Knowing the Value of Breyer Models

2011-08-04T08:19:00.000-07:00

Antique Mall Find

Knowing the values and identifying Breyer horse models is an important skill, as I recently learned on my "staycation." My sister visited and stayed with me for several days, and since we both enjoy antiques, we went antiquing. We visited two large local antique malls, she on her quest to find salt and pepper shakers for our other sister, and me looking for Carnival glass, Depression glass, and horse models.

I was soon rewarded on our first stop by the sight of two Breyers on a vendor table. There was the Traditional scale Breyer action stock horse foal and the bay Running Foal. Both had seen better days. The ASF was the matte chestnut Appaloosa released in the early 1990s, and he was quite yellowed and dirty looking. The bay running foal was the usual bay color produced seemingly forever, and he had some nasty scratches on the barrel. I'd put both in the "remake" category. The vendor price tag? $8 bucks each. Mint value on the Appy action stock horse foal is about $13 and bay Running Foal is about the same. I passed.

At the next antique mall, however, I hit the jackpot. There were two Breyers there also. One was in one of my all time favorite molds, the Foundation Stallion, and the other was a Paddock Pal Morgan. I passed up the Morgan. He was in that clinky early 1990s brittle plastic that I can't stand, plus he was beat to heck and back from some child's overactive imagination. The 1988-1991 American Indian Pony, as the matte fleabitten gray horse model is called, is worth $24 mint condition, and a close inspection of this particular model revealed only one tiny factory flaw on the hip. I snatched him up for the bargain price of $6.

This just goes to show you that you need to know the value of Breyer horse models if you plan to collect and find them at yard sales and antique malls. I love the Breyer Animal Collector's Guide for the pictures alone, but it really has helped me just get a good idea of the ballpark price range for most Breyers. I've taken special note of molds that I collect, like the Foundation Stallion, so that I know about what to pay for mint condition models and I can adjust from there.

I'm happy with my purchase, shown here today. All in all, I'd say it was a great day antiquing!

Adding Hair Manes and Tails to Model Horses

2011-08-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

Breyer PAS with mohair mane by Kathy Maestas

There are trends in the model horse hobby just as there are trends throughout every aspect of our lives, from clothing to furniture styles and colors. One trend that I have seen come and go throughout my many years of collecting is the trend of adding hair manes and tails to customized Breyers. Back in the 1970s, hair manes and tails tended to be very fake-looking acrylic hair, sort of like doll hair, on flocked horses. Then in the 1980s, mohair manes and tails became fashionable. The "best" show horses tend to have long, flowing mohair manes and tails. I often joke that the 'big hair' trends of the 1980s extended to horse models!

In the 1990s, I think that mohair manes and tails went out of fashion. Resin horse models - Artist Resins - and special run Breyers became more fashionable. New brands such as Peter Stone, Schleich and The Lakeshore Collection offered model horse enthusiast new choices for gorgeous horse models.

Now as we enter the second decade of the 21st century, mohair manes and tails are making a comeback. Faye Cohen is perhaps the best-known customizer adding hair manes and tails, but Carol Williams, Kathy Maestas and Linda Leach are also well known for their hair manes and tails too.

My latest articles for About.com offer how-to advice for adding your own hair manes and tails. I have added many in my day; I've shared my process here, as well as included additional links at the end of the article to both Carol's printable instructions on the Rio Rondo website (which has really nice photos accompanying it!) as well as Faye's instructions too.

Enjoy!

Click the links below to read the articles:

Spooky! Breyer's Halloween Horses

2011-07-27T10:06:00.000-07:00

Illuminati, owned by Christa Gleadhill.

A huge thank you to Christa Gleadhill, Lin Ranson, Stacy Quick and Heather Willendorf for generously sharing their photos with me for my latest articles on the Breyer Halloween horses. Please enjoy the articles, below, and check your collection - did you buy all the Halloween horses before they were discontinued? What do you need to obtain for your complete collection? Enjoy!

Breyer Stablemate Halloween Horses article - Spooky Stablemates
Traditional Scale Breyer Halloween Horses article

Choosing Models for Western Pleasure and Performance Classes

2011-07-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

One of Kollean's performance horses.

I love looking at pictures of beautiful horse models, don't you? It's fun to see what else is out there beyond your own collection. I'm trying to add more photo essays to About.com featuring all the lovely horse models out there. Today's post is a link to my latest article on Choosing Horse Models for Western Pleasure. Thank you to Kollean Gouyton for the use of some of her images.

Model Horses-Cutting Horses

2011-07-19T07:46:00.000-07:00

Cool Whip resin, sculpted and painted by Candace Liddy

Do you enjoy Western performance classes, either watching real horses compete in the show pen or tacking up your models for performance classes? My appreciation of Western riding grew only after I took a few lessons with Appaloosa horse trainer Pam Horvath. Pam's superbly trained national competition Appaloosas were the equivalent of driving a super 2011 Porsche after years of driving a 1976 Pinto. You could just think at them and they'd smoothly move off into whatever movement you wanted.

After riding Pam's horses and moving to an area that actually gets RFD TV, the rural channel on satellite, I've enjoyed watching reining, cutting, and roping competitions. As part of my continuing series of performance articles to help new collectors get into performance showing, I've written a new article for About.com on entering cutting classes with your model horses.

Learn How to Enter Cutting Classes-Western Performance for Model Horses

The first horse pictures in the article and the one on this page if Cool Whip, sculpted and painted by Candace Liddy. He's in my personal collection here in the office. As always, I'm deeply indebted to Kollean Gouyton of Stone Wolf Creations for the generous use of her photos to illustrate my articles.

Please feel free to share this link and you can link to the article from your site or blog. Just don't reprint it - About.com gets the right to the full text, but I welcome links into the piece. Thanks!

Shopping at Breyerfest

2011-07-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

Breyerfest 2005 Artisans Hall

For those who are heading off to Lexington...or wishing they were...thought I'd share a roundup of my Breyerfest-related articles. It really is an experience that's hard to describe. I love how technology ranging from video to social networking is keeping me connected to my friends who are there this year. It makes me hope I can go next year!

Shopping at Breyerfest - my tips for shopping
Breyerfest Overview

Enjoy!

Meet Horse Model Artisans

2011-07-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

Meckinzie resin by Michelle Platt, painted by Kollean Gouyton

Let's suppose that you, like me, can't get to Breyerfest this year. There's no sense in feeling sorry for ourselves, is there? You can still meet model horse artisans virtually - through interviews! I collected four interviews here for your reading pleasure. Two have accompanying photo essays showcasing the artists' works.

READ - Meet Model Horse Artists, Sculptors, Tack Makers

Do you want me to interview a particular artist? I'd love some suggestions! Email me or leave a comment, below.

Breyerfest Thoughts

2011-07-05T07:27:00.000-07:00

Breyerfest 2006 - fond memories!

I've attended several Breyerfest but ongoing family issues will keep us home again this year. Look for some specials from my company, EquinArt Creations, coming later this month in honor of Breyerfest and be sure to visit our friends and artists' tables - Candace Liddy will be there with her gorgeous sculptures and painted pieces, Sheri Rhodes will be there, Cindy Neuhaus and The Lakeshore Collection, and more.

Many people have published humorous Breyerfest guides as well as tips to get the most out of your trip. To tell you the truth, the first year I went, I felt completely overwhelmed. When I was growing up, there was the "Model Horse Congress" which was the name for the big event of the year. I wanted to so badly to go to live shows and model horse events but no way were my parents going to take me! Many years later as an adult, John and I vacationed in Kentucky and we went to the Horse Park. That was one of my favorite parts of the trip even though my poor husband, although an animal lover, could care less about antique tack and horse breeds. I remember him physically tugging me away from a display of antique tack in the Museum of the Horse; there was a velvet-covered sidesaddle from the 17th century that I couldn't take my eyes off of.

In 2005 we attended our first Breyerfest. I couldn't get over the poor Holiday Inn - imagine people hanging Christmas and party lights in the hallways, stuff taped to every square inch of the walls, and mobs of people thronging the halls at all hours of the day and night toting huge shopping bags of model horses. There was even a girl trying to sell puppies outside the ballrooms (I kid you not). It was a mob scene.

If you've never gone to Breyerfest, here are my own tips, especially for shopping at the Clarion (the former Holiday Inn) -

Bring cash or stop at the bank daily to get cash. The cash machines at the hotel run out fast.
Bring your own bags. Most vendors have them, but room sales might not.
Ship stuff back to your home via the UPS counter or stop in town at the post office if you run out of room in your car!
Bring healthy snacks and food or stop at a supermarket. There's fast food, but if you're trying to watch your weight or you just don't want to wait forever for your food, pack a cooler and stop at a store to buy something healthy.
Bring a huge water bottle and drink your water. The horse park gets HOT. You'll be standing a lot - on lines, shopping, whatever. Don't get overheated!
Look around the room sales first and buy only your "must haves." Room sales are at the hotel and many people put model horses out for sale in their rooms. Sometimes you can find the same thing for sale in different places at very different prices! Unless you absolutely have to have it right there, poke around a bit more first.
Take home all the brochures and literature you can. One of the best parts of Breyerfest for me was going through my bag of stuff once I got home!

I'll miss you guys there this year but please do stop by EquinArt Creations online - and hope to catch you another year!

Customizing Etiquette for Model Horses and Artist Resins

2011-06-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

Amirah painted by the late, great Kathy Williams

Did you know there's an etiquette when it comes to customizing other peoples' works? It's true.

First off, let's distinguish between OF Breyers, Stones and other mass-produced models. Most companies don't care what you do with their models after you buy them, as long as you don't copy them and try to resell them. That's theft. Some people who customize Breyers use the bodies as bases for resins, and I've heard through the grapevine that Breyer has some type of policy on this, but I've never been able to pin them down in writing (if anyone has a link to their policy on this please share!). So I would say that you should feel free to repaint your Breyers, stick a new head on them, or add a hair mane and tail to your heart's content.

Then we get into the realm of Artist Resins, and things get fuzzy.

Artist Resins are different. Artists set their own policies regarding their resins. Some don't mind if you customize their works, as long as you do not recast them. Like copying a Breyer, that's stealing and a big no-no. Others restrict and limit what may or may not be done to their models.

It's always best when buying an Artist Resin and thinking about customizing it to contact the artist. I know, for example, that our very popular Amirah artist resin is often customized in the mane area; the way the mane is sculpted, it interferes with a Western saddle horn, and many people like to show Amirah in performance and costume (she does quite well, by the way). So we do allow people to customize her a bit. Others don't like her base, and we do allow changes to the base. But all these changes have to be to your own personal copy - you absolutely may not make a copy of the resin that you've changed.

If you're an artist, where do you stand on customizing your work? And if you customize, where do you draw the line? Post your comments below.

New Additions to My Personal Herd-Collecta and Schleich Model Horses

2011-06-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

Model horses make me feel ageless, perhaps because when I open a box and unwrap a new model horse, I'm transported back in time - 1976, 1982, 1990. I remember times as a child unwrapping Christmas presents and seeing the brown and tan colored Breyer model horse box under the paper, or a Marx Johnny West horse; or I'm a teenager again who sent off a money order and is now unwrapping a J.C. Penney special order model horse. That excitement of adding a new model horse to my collection has never faded, and I suspect it never will.

Yet now as an adult, with household expenses to think about, I find myself reaching for less expensive collectibles. It's kind of funny when you think about it. As a kid, you dream about having all the money you could possibly want to buy model horses. Grownups look so rich, don't they? I mean, they have $20 bills in their wallets - think of how many Breyers a grownup could really buy? Then you grow up and suddenly realize you have a mortgage to pay, retirement to save for, and all sorts of expenses that go along with life. Suddenly that wallet doesn't look so fat!

I save up to buy resins (of course!) and love the exclusive, holy grail kind of finds. But I also enjoy horse models for their sheer beauty and the continuing fun of collecting them.

Schleich Andalusian

This month found me in Tractor Supply buying more Schleich models. They really are coming out with better and better ones each year, although some of the colors are odd. I added the Andalusian and the Quarter Horse stallions to the collection this month. And after interview Deborah McDermott for About.com, I ended up purchasing the Collecta Tenneessee Walking Horse stallion and foal. Now there's a new toy line worth watching. Great value and excellent painting and shading on the horses. I will show them all and let you know how they do.

Collecta TWH stallion

Collecta TWH foal

No matter how old I get, the fun of adding new models to my collection never fades. Do you feel this way, too?

Western Pleasure Classes for Model Horses

2011-06-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

I've started the next series of showing articles, this time focusing on the Western arena. Please enjoy my latest model horse collecting and showing article on About.com. Thanks again to Kollean Gouyton for allowing use of her show photos. The pictures on the blog today are Kollean's - I'm more of a huntseat kind of gal :)

CLICK the link to read the article: Show Your Breyer Model Horses in Western Pleasure

Costume Classes for Model Horses

2011-06-22T07:37:00.000-07:00

I posted a new article on About.com today providing an overview for newcomers to costume classes, those fun events when crafters really go wild recreating everything from authentic Arabian and Native American costumes to historical and cultural costumes for model horses.

Alas, though, I learned to ride and showed hunter horses on Long Island, and never saw an actual costume class. English riders are already in costume enough - trust me, those skin tight breeches and the knee high boots feel like something out of merry old England when you're tugging them on during a heat wave and all you want to do is throw on jeans and a t shirt and go trail riding.

Please enjoy the article here: Costume Classes for Model Horses

I'd love to pull together a photo essay showing many creative costumes. If you'd like to share your photos, please email me at jeannegrunert at dishmail dot net. Thanks!

Fine Porcelain Model Horses

2011-06-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

Fine porcelain picks up details and to my eye, shades and nuances of color, better than any other medium. My company, EquinArt Creations, offers for sale a fine porcelain version of Wyakin, Michelle Platt's Traditional scale Appaloosa, with finish work by Donna Chaney. All three patterns and colors depicted are currently available and I am waiting for the final set of photos for the fourth color choice. For details and ordering information, please visit China Wyakin's page.

Bay varnish with blanket and spots

Leopard Appaloosa

Black varnish with blanket and spots

The Elegant Art of Sidesaddle for Model Horses

2011-06-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

Elegance in real life

The first time I ever saw someone riding sidesaddle in real life was when I was 16 years old and taking horseback riding lessons at Rice Farms. We drove up to the barn and my instructor, Cindy, was riding one of the school horses sidesaddle. She looked elegant even though she was wearing English breeches and boots and didn't wear the show ring apron. She was taking a sidesaddle lesson, and Mrs. O'Rourke was instructing. I was terribly afraid of Mrs. O'Rourke. She was an tough old-school riding instructor, her face tanned like leather, her eyes always hidden behind mirrored lenses. I don't think I ever saw her smile at the beginning students such as myself; she taught only very advanced riders and the other instructors. She was reputed to be an exacting, demanding trainer whose students went on to A circuit wins.

Ever since I saw Cindy riding sidesaddle, I have always wanted to learn how, and if I ever do take the plunge and buy a horse it will be a quiet ladylike mount I can eventually learn how to ride like a Victorian countess.

Elegance in model horses!

Until then, there's always model horses. I wrote a new article for About.com about ladies' sidesaddle classes. Breyer had a terrific sidesaddle set and Vikki Noris makes beautiful Western sets. Tack makers, if you want to share picture of your sidesaddles, email me please and I can do a second photo article showing off your work!

Please enjoy Showing in Sidesaddle Performance Classes for Model Horses.

Special thanks to Vikki for the use of the terrific photos!

Showing Model Horse Foals

2011-06-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

Artist Resin "Red Fox" foal sculpted/painted by Candace Liddy - in my personal collection.

A little trip down memory lane today sparked by my turn at judging the Model Foal Breeder's Club May/June photo show. I looked through my shoebox of photos and based on the member numbers on the back, I must have joined the original MFBA sometime in the 1980s. Doris Rau was the president and I think she was the founder. She used to print a terrific model horse journal from the MFBA that was chock full of ads. By today's standards you'd probably laugh at it, but it was photocopied in black and white and stapled with big industrial staples. There would be a line drawing on the cover, and tons of sales ads. In those days sales ads had NO photos. You looked down a long list of models and descriptions and bought them sight unseen! Today everyone wants a dozen closeups of every conceivable angle, but back then you went by whatever someone posted and trusted them. I don't recall ever getting taken advantage of or getting something in poor condition listed as great condition, but that might have been just me.

1970s Josef China foal - from my personal collection

MFBA is fun. It's all foals and only foals. I love judging performance classes, but foals are fun because of the variety and the explanations people come up with for all the weird Breyer colors. How many pure white or dappled gray foals have you ever seen in real life? None, right? Because horses are typically born bay or black and then shed out around 2 or 3 years old into a dappled gray, or they roan out and then dappled. But Breyer paints 'em and we show 'em, dapples and all.

1980s Hagen Renaker foal, from my personal collection

Another thing I love about showing foals are all the wacky positions. There are sleeping foals, scratching foals, running foals, bucking foals, nursing foals. I've yet to see anyone come up with a clever reason why a nursing foal has his neck and head stuck out when he's standing in the show pen, but show them they do!

I collect foals because they're adorable, but also because they're smaller, and so I can fit more on the shelf. That's also why I love minis. But they also add charm and a certain whimsy to my collection.

I'd never breed real horses and I don't know the first thing about showing or training little foals. But the plastic and china kind? Love them!

Mini Whini

One of my favorite Breyer foals - palomino Classic Arabian

Get Started Customizing Your Model Horses

2011-06-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

My own customizing/painting work

Do you enjoy customizing model horses? I first learned about customizing from articles in Just About Horses. I think I can blame - er, credit? - Sue Sudekum for those, or maybe another of the Sues from the good old days. I never kept at it, and so my results weren't spectacular, but I do enjoy painting on occasion and I still sculpt (ha! bet you thought I just sell other peoples' work - yes, I do sculpt, and have since high school, but not often.)

But - and here's the wonderful thing about the model horse hobby - folks who are a lot better and smarter than me at all the customizing stuff shared their insights and Kollean Gouyton even shared her photos. So, without further ado, here's my latest article on About.com with links to many OTHER articles to help you get started customizing.

Who knows? If you stick with it, you might get really good at it!

Read: Beginner's Guide to Customizing Model Horses


Another custom I created, sometime around 8th grade....

What I aspire to! Custom by my friend Kollean Gouyton

Collecta Model Horses

2011-06-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

Holly Lenz introduced me to Collecta model horses, and I bought my first ones from Geddies Toys last week. They came today. I give them two thumbs up, Siskel and Ebert style. First, a little disclaimer - I know Deborah McDermott and so I might be a wee bit biased towards liking the models already. For those who don't know Deborah, she sculpted the horse models for Collecta, and what a great job she did.

But here's why I love the new Collecta line of model horses and why I plan to buy more in the upcoming months:

Beautiful, realistic horse models: The sculptures are really well done. I ordered the Tennessee Walking Horse and foal, and both are nicely detailed for little plastic sculptures. As soon as I unpacked the stallion, I thought, "I'm showing him - he will do well in photo shows." He's that nice!
Nice painting: The painting is stunning. The stallion has a little bit of a metallic sheen to the palomino color, but it's nicely done. He's also got great shading.
Price is right! Just $8.99 for the stallion and $3.99 for the foal, plus Geddies threw in some coupons. Their shipping was reasonable, and they had excellent communications (thanks Geddies! It was a pleasure ordering from your website.) I used to spend $10 on a Breyer as a kid (okay, that was about a billion years ago but still...) and my comfort zone to spend on new plastic model horses for myself is around $20 bucks. I know that sounds cheap, but I can't justify spending $50 on a Traditional scale Breyer anymore. I loved the cremello "Pampelmousse" drafter special order in JAH but when I saw the price tag - $70 bucks or so - I thought, "No way." I love my model horses, but if I'm spending $70 bucks on a model, I'll wait a bit more and buy a sweet Lakeshore porcelain model or an Artist Resin. To me that's worth $70, $100, or more, but not a plastic Breyer.

The price is right, and despite being made of a slightly rubbery plastic, I really loved my purchases. I will be back for more.

Learn more about Collecta models and Deborah McDermott in my latest interview for About.com. Deborah provided me with the photo used here and in the article and I have permission to use them.

Enjoy the interview!

Do you collect Collecta? Are you familiar with them? What do you think?

Please Support HorseAbility

2011-06-01T08:41:00.000-07:00

College riding days

My friend Katie and I met during college. She joined the equestrian team and half-leased my horse, Kricket. Soon afterwards, she moved on to lease another horse, Bandit, at a different barn, but she remained on the team, eventually becoming the captain. Today, she coaches the team!

But more importantly, for the past 19 years Katie has run a wonderful program called HorseAbility. It is therapeutic riding at its best. She has the most amazing horses, volunteers, staff and facility. I have been privileged to volunteer at the Special Olympics horseback riding competition at her facility when I lived on Long Island. I once watched a preschooler with cerebral palsy happily toddle over to groom a placid white pony while his mother whispered to me, "He cried and screamed during physical therapy, but when it's a horse? He runs to the car and talks non stop the whole way here, he's so excited to be at the barn." His progress and mobility improved dramatically after he began therapy with horses. His eyes just lit up with joy when he saw that pony.

So when I received the following email, I thought I would share it with you. If you feel it in your heart to donate anything to the program, please read the letter and information below.

I am cooking up some benefit or other through EquinArt Creations or my model horse activities, but until then, HorseAbility could use your help.

I plan to earmark some donations for Horse Heroes, the program for veterans.

Here's Katie's letter to me:

*   *   *

Dear Friends and Family,


I hope this email finds you well. As my friends and family, you know I have had the pleasure and privilege of being the Founder and Executive Director of HorseAbility for the last 19 years as well as how important the organization, its mission and all that it represents means to me.

Winston Churchill said it best, "There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man".

My intention for sending this e-mail is to request your support. HorseAbility, a non-profit 501c3, helps children and adults within the special needs community through a Therapeutic Horseback Riding Program, Hippotherapy Program, Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy Program and Summer Day Camp. Please visit our website to learn more: www.HorseAbility.org


My husband Danny and I have set a goal to help support HorseAbility:


At this time, in order to support and maintain the programs at HorseAbility, Danny and I will personally match contributions received up to $5000 with our own contribution of $5000, totaling $10,000.

Personally, I have experienced the miracles of watching children with various special needs (Autism, ADD/ADHD, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome amongst many others)   take their first steps, utter their first words, smile and giggle with glee when they are at HorseAbility; watching an adult recovering from a stroke or battling MS enjoy their independence while sitting astride a horse.   I continually am overwhelmed with the generosity of the numerous Volunteers who join us, offer so much of themselves and their time to ensure the safety and success of our programs.

Your contribution, of any amount, would be most appreciated. Below is a list of the wonderful ways your support will be utilized.

Your donation can help:

send a child(ren) to Camp HorseAbility (August 22-26)
an individual/family who is in need of our services, yet, financially is struggling
returning military personnel and/or veterans to participate in our Horses for Heroes program
educate our Volunteers by sponsoring workshops, clinics and training
sponsor a horse(s) (hay, feed, grain, shavings, supplements, shoes, etc.)
print our brochures and newsletters so we can insure that the information about HorseAbility reaches the people that are in need of our services

Contributions can be made easily online through the Network for Good:

    or by mail to:
    HorseAbility
    238 Round Swamp Road
    Melville, NY 11747

Please keep in mind that all donations are tax-deductible. All support is greatly appreciated, large or small. When contributing please indicate the McGowan Matching Grant in the memo.

Thank you for helping us reach our goal and support the mission of the organization that is so important to us and our community.

Mission: HorseAbility Therapeutic Riding Program, Hippotherapy Program, Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy Program and Summer Day Camp offers a wide range of horse-related programs to children, adults, and families with special needs to promote the physical, psychological, emotional, social, and spiritual well being of its participants.


Kindly,

Katie and Danny McGowan

    Katie McGowan
    Founder/Executive Director
    HorseAbility
    238 Round Swamp Road
    Melville, NY 11747
    Phone: 631.367.1646 x 10
    Fax: 631.367.1647
    Email: HorseAble@aol.com

Model Horse Shopping

2011-06-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

My guilty pleasure is to go model horse shopping. On the last Sunday of the month, if I have any of my pocket money for the month leftover, I stop at Tractor Supply on the way home from church. I used to buy Breyers but our local Tractor Suppy stopped carrying them; did yours? I heard rumors about Breyer changing its retailer rules and Tractor Supply pulling out of the retailing end, and I hope it's not true. I miss buying Breyers at Tractor Supply along with bags of potting soil, work gloves, and new tractor batteries!

Tractor Supply does, however, still carry Schleich models, of which I have grown quite fond. First of all, they'd adorable - and highly realistic. I don't normally buy farm animal models, but I've found myself over the months coming home with a piglet, chicken and duck models to adorn my growing model farm.

My most recent acquisitions are the Schleich Andalusian stallion, the Quarter Horse Stallion, and a German shepherd puppy that reminded me of my Shadow and my friend's dog, Angel's puppies.

Now the online shopping. What is it with eBay these days? The prices seem so high to me. I used to score great bargains on eBay, and not just model horses...used to be you could pick up a nice, good condition used blouse, sweater or purse for 99 cents plus shipping. All the stuff I see now? They want $8, $10, $20 - for used clothes! Honey, I can go to Roses discount store and buy a brand new Lands End polo shirt for $3 and pay no shipping. No thanks.

But even the model horses are outrageous. There are always those "rare ANTIQUE Breyer!" ads that make all the serious collectors cringe when they see a beat up old palomino FAS, a rearing stallion, or a palomino Grazing Mare. But I have also seem fairly good Breyers for high prices.

Part of this is, I think, eBays fault. They keep tinkering with the fee structures and shipping rates and God only knows what else. I'm at the point where I'm seriously thinking of shutting down my eBay store, I've grown to loathe all their policy changes. I miss the days of Meg Whitman and when eBay felt like a giant rummage sale. Now it feels like a weird version of an Amazon store.

Yet I continue to peruse the auctions....found myself searching MHSP ads for my next acquisitions...popped over to Geddes Toys and seriously contemplated adding a Collecta model to the collection...still can't decide on Hagen Renakers or new Stablemates and micro minis...decisions, decisions!

By the way, below is my "want" list. If you have any of these models, I may be interested, so email me at jeannegrunert at yahoo.com. Thanks.

My Want List
No trades (my model horse company is run as a separate business entity and I can't trade resins for my personal collection, sorry!) but I pay by either money order or PayPal.

Display Condition - Good - Minor rubs/scratches okay for the right price

Charcoal Family Arabian Foal
Palomino grazing foal

Low on the list but interested

Family Arabian mare and foal to match "Khalife" (if Breyer made them)
Classic scale USET set
Classic scale Lippizan
Classic scale Arabian set and foal
Classic scale Andalusian family

Question of the day: What is your favorite place to shop for mass produced models such as Breyers, Schleich or others?

I know your favorite place to shop for resins is EquinArt Creations (grins).

Have a great day!

Model Horse Fun Video

2011-05-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

I laughed so hard I cried - literally, tears were on my cheeks. Kate Cabot sent me these videos through Facebook. I'm going to try posting a few here. They are on YouTube as well. If you love Breyer horses and the entire model horse hobby....but know the oddities and vagaries of showing your collectible horse models...you will love this video. Thanks Kate :)

Learn How to Paint a Shaded Base Coat

2011-05-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

Boise in progress in Kollean's studio

Kollean Gouyton of Stone Wolf Creations is painting my Boise Bound resin by Michelle Platt for me; I love Kollean's work and collect it almost to the exclusion of other painters, although there are a few painters whose works I have my eye on! (I'm a sucker for palominos and buckskins, so if you are a painter and have any small scale stuff for sale in those colors, please DO email me.)

I always let Kollean pick the colors for my horse models. I give artists who work with me a lot of freedom! Kollean agreed to help me with an article for About.com since I am not a very good model horse painter. I think it's important to know your own strengths and weaknesses, don't you? I can write about nearly anything, and probably have. I write a lot about model horses. I take decent model horse photographs and I know how to sell model horses. But honestly, my painting always looks like a 6 year old did it, so I leave that to the professionals.

Kollean graciously took step by step photos using my Boise resin as the guinea pig, and she helped me providing the facts such as what colors she is using and in what order she used them. The result is more of a collaborative piece than the byline suggests, so I wanted to publicly thank Kollean for everything.

Kollean, I am SO glad I met you at Breyerfest 2006!

Here are some photos of my model horses, all painted by Kollean. Her website is Stone Wolf Creations and she always has stuff for sale.

CLICK HERE for the article Learn How to Paint Shaded Layer Base Coat for Model Horses.

Customized Breyer

Maggie Bennett micro mini Arabian stallion

McKenzie by Michelle Platt painted to look like Mokey from the Summer Pony books.

EquinArt/Maggie Bennett SM scale Artist Resin TWH mare. I sell this one at EquinArt unpainted.

Love this mold! G3 Breyer Belgian, customized. I've got a great conga of this mold.

My Dreadful Performance Setups - Past

2011-05-24T10:23:00.000-07:00

Want a good laugh? Okay, before I share my latest article with you on what judges look for in performance setups...this is like "What Not to Wear" but for model horses. These are pictures of my "performance setups" from the 1980s. Have a laugh at my expense, fellow collectors! I'll post the article about what TO do in performance classes next time. Until then....my collection and performance show pictures, circa 1980 or so....

My favorite picture - my very own CM Breyer FAM. I made her when I was 12 years old. Her neck sort of caved in. The parade saddle, here used for barrel racing, was from a Marx horse. I made the bridle from leftover pleather from my brother's Halloween costume (we made him a Gene Simmons from KISS outfit). The barrel is the best part - no joke - it's a Campbell's Soup can I painted. I actually like the barrel.

Hunter over fences, with a gigantic out of proportion fence. Note that Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors decided to stand in as a jump decoration. And a black snaffle with a brown saddle really looks spiffy, don't you think?

Western Trail...not bad, except for the missing stirrups.

Model Horse Show Jumping Classes

2011-05-23T05:02:00.000-07:00

Show jumping is the only equestrian sport next to racing that ever made it onto broadcast TV when I was a kid. When I rode real horses, I never liked to jump, but my friend Janet (from whom I leased two different horses) loved jumpers so much she ended up at Olympic athlete Nona Garson's barn in New Jersey. I actually interviewed Nona in the 1990s about her Olympic participation, and that article appeared in a magazine called Horse People. I have watched countless show jumping classes in person, from small local unrated shows to the Hampton Classic. It's a thrilling sport to watch but you would not catch me in a million years jumping a fence that high!

My latest contribution to About.com is an article on Show Jumping for Model Horses. Perhaps the biggest mistake I have seen as a model horse show judge are people who confuse show jumping with hunters and who think the clothing for the riders, the tack and even the fences are interchangeable. Typically they are not, although you could make a case for a hunter-style rider doll and more natural looking fences in a small local jumper class than you could for a fancy jumper-type setup in the hunter ring. You would never see a garish Budweiser or Rolex jump on a hunt course, that's for sure.

Please enjoy my article and feel free to share it. Thank you to Jane Cadwalader Schneider for the photos and permission to use them.

Enter Show Jumping Classes in Model Horse Shows on About.com

Showing Model Horses in English Trail Classes

2011-05-21T05:38:00.000-07:00

English trail - horse and photo by Kollean Gouyton and used with permission

I showed in an actual English trail class once. I didn't know what in the world I was doing. I borrowed my friend Janet's roan Quarter Horse, Pumpkin, and we wandered into the ring and walked over poles. I remember struggling to mount from the ground. Then, as now, I need a mounting block. Remember, I show English, and Pumpkin was a 16 hand, very big Quarter Horse, and I've probably got the worst flexibility of anyone I know, then and now...ugh. Disaster. We did trot our poles well and canter over a cross rail as I recall, but we didn't even place.

So you may be wondering why I'm telling you all this when I've just published a new article on About.com about English trail classes. Well, sometimes your greatest failures in life teach you the most. Because I knew that I knew nothing about English trail, I spent some time researching it. I looked a fun local show photos online where tarps were used for water obstacles and where riders opened gates and mailboxes. I looked at model horse show photos that blew me away for their accuracy and realism.

I think English trail offers a good option for model horse collectors who own obstacles for Western trail classes and have a nice huntseat set and want a few more classes to enter on the English side of the performance arena. Many models can be used for such classes, and even some crazy poses work okay. I just wouldn't enter the bucking horse, the Grazing Mare, or Maggie Bennett's rolling micro mini if you know what I mean!

Please enjoy my latest article for About.com by clicking on this link. How to Show Breyers and Other Model Horses in English Trail Classes.

Feel free to share the link, too.

NAMHSA Donation Win a Stablemate Scale LSQ Appaloosa from EquinArt Creations

2011-05-18T05:13:00.000-07:00

Win this painted LSQ resin - NAMHSA raffle

You can win a Stablemate scale Artist Resin Appaloosa model horse! I donated a live show quality painted Stablemate Cutting Horse Resin to the 2011 NAMHSA raffle. She's the Quarter Horse mare, sculpted by Maggie Bennett, and custom painted by Lisa Bickford into a lovely detailed leopard Appaloosa. She's a terrific little model that will make a stock horse lover very happy. I do not collect Appaloosas and am selling most of my Appies off, except for the customized Breyer Knabstrup gelding Kollean Gouyton painted for me...that one stays, the rest I am donating or selling. Since she is an EquinArt Creations resin and that is my Artist Resin company, I thought I would share it here.

You can bid on the little Appaloosa on the NAMHSA website. Click here to see her and bid.

Here's a link to the unpainted Quarter Horses. All three will be in stock later this week and are gorgeous LSQ models. The jogging one has won numerous ribbons for his happy owners, in custom painted colors of course.

Good luck to all showing and participating at NAMHSA 2011 and Breyerfest!

Goodbye to a Legend: RIP Karen Grimm

2011-05-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

Thoroughbred foal sculpture by Karen Grimm, circa 1990

Today I heard the sad news that model horse legend and friend to many, Karen Grimm, died yesterday. Details are emerging but it appears that she hit her head and died a short time after she received medical attention. The bitter irony of losing Karen to a head injury after watching her fight ovarian cancer for the past year and more is lending a special poignancy to the announcement. Please keep her husband Peter in your thoughts and prayers as he deals with his loss.

I first met Karen through the old horse model journals. These were printed on photocopy machines in black and white, stapled and sent through the U.S. Mail before the Internet made us all model horse shopaholics. In 1989, I was in college and riding real horses through my college's Intercollegiate riding team, leasing horses and showing. I occasionally painted models or tried various crafts, but I was less "into" the hobby than I had been in my elementary and high school years.

Then came a model horse magazine with pictures of Karen's new model horses. Resin model horses? What were these? I decided to splurge and I ordered one of Karen's Thoroughbred foals. It was a huge investment for a struggling college student - $100 - and I didn't really understand the buying instructions. She wanted to know my first color choice and marking choice? I just like the horse in the picture...really, anything was fine.

The next thing I knew, a stunning Traditional scale chestnut foal arrived. He's pictured here. Doesn't look like much by today's standards, but this early Black Horse Ranch Artist Resin foal, signed, number and custom created for me by Karen Grimm was a huge hit in the photo show ring in the early 1990s. I had an offer once of $1,000 for him, which I should have taken - NOT! He's not worth anything like that today but I love him so much I wouldn't sell him. He's just that kind of model.

Karen's contributions to the hobby cannot be stressed enough. Her massive model horse collection, some thousands of models, is like the history of model horses contained in an outbuilding on her farm. She sculpted, she created the resin hobby as we know it today (along with some other innovators like Carol Williams and others); she sold model horses mail order. Her real horse activities included breeding and showing champion Appaloosa horses.

Karen held open house days on her ranch, and many collectors oohed and aahed about her collection. I am going to share an idea here for the first time in the hopes that someone will take my idea and run with it. Why not start a Model Horse Museum? It should be in Lexington, near the Horse Park, near Breyerfest. Breyer and Stone and the major companies should sponsor a portion of it on how models are made. Then major collectors like Karen and others who have amassed huge collections should donate their collections upon their death to the museum. I've had this idea for a long, long time but never have enough time to work on it and start it as a nonprofit. You heard it here first.

In the meantime, I think of Karen. I look at my little chestnut foal and marvel at how a simple hobby like collecting model horses introduces people so different - Karen, an accomplished horsewoman and collector, living on a ranch in Nevada, and me, a college student at the time I met her, living on Long Island. We were worlds apart but bound by a love of all things horses. I did not know her well, but I did keep in touch; and I will forever treasure my BHR model, and the remembrance of her kindness and innovation.

Rest in peace, Karen.

Showing Your Model Horses in English Performance Classes

2011-05-10T09:26:00.000-07:00


Your truly riding Dynasty at an Intercollegiate Horse Show with my coach, Carole Gerrity

I grew up on Long Island and began riding lessons at age 16 at Rice Farms (which is now a housing development in Plainview, unfortuantely). My neighborhood was decidedly middle class but not far away is the famous "Gold Coast" that Nelson Demille wrote about in his books and F. Scott Fitzgerald set The Great Gatsby in. Decades ago the rich and famous rode to the hounds out there, and English riding is still "the" way to ride in the area. Before I moved I did take some Western lessons with the awesome Appaloosas horse breeder and trainer Pam Horvath, but Western was never quite as big there as it is in other parts of the country. As for gaited horses - what gaited horses? The only breeds you ever saw were Thoroughbreds, Quarter Horses, Warmbloods, and some Appies, Paints and grade (mixed) breeds. I never met a Tennessee Walking Horse or an American Saddlebred until I attended horse shows in Kentucky and Tennessee!

Super jumper rider doll - thanks Jane for the photo!

So that brings me to my latest articles for About.com on showing model horses. I've continued my English performance series this month, starting with an article with five links to other pieces that tell you all the basics about English style for model horses. This week, look for pieces on English trail and jumping events.

Please enjoy my latest article, Make an English Show Ring Scene

Special thanks to Sue Sudekum, Kollean Gouyton and Jane Cadwalader-Schneider for permission to use their images and in Sue's case, project instructions.

New Article Featuring the Model Horses of Andrea Kehrer

2011-05-04T05:12:00.000-07:00

Photo by Andrea Kehrer and used with permission.

Most of my friends know that I have a "thing" for great miniature work, whether it's a miniature dollhouse or a neat model horse setup. I've always loved minis. Well, when Andrea Kehrer of Black Forest Ranch, Germany, bought a Red Fox and Kermit artist resin set from EquinArt Creations, she sent me a link to her site to show me her new models. Many people do that and I love looking at their pictures. So I clicked over and nearly fell out of my chair at the dioramas Andrea had on her site, at her realistic performance setups and more. I asked for her permission to use her photos and she said yes. I used them as a springboard and wrote about how young collectors could use their Breyer barns and accessories to create mini scenes. Many of Andrea's props look custom made, but I thought that youngsters might enjoy playing with their Breyer stables. And hey, us oldsters do too! I know my friend Joel on Facebook has a Schleich setup (which I am dying to see - hint hint) and many others like to make scenes. It reminds me of simpler times, when I used to use cardboard boxes to make Barbie doll rooms and houses. It's all good, clean imaginative fun.

Please enjoy the article, Create Scenes to Tell a Story with Breyer Horses. Thank you again to Andrea for the use of the photos.

New Model Horse Article Round Up

2011-05-01T06:10:00.000-07:00

Round up! Well, not the cattle-driving kind.....I've forgotten to post recent links to my articles on model horses on About.com. Let's wrap up a nice weekend with some fun reads about the model horse hobby.

Expert Tips from Model Horse Prop Maker Kevin McFarland - great tips from someone who knows how to make terrific live show scenes and dioramas
Tips for Safely Trading Breyer Horses
How to Sell Breyer Horses - tips for writing ads that sell your model horses and attract buyers

I've written over 100 articles now on About.com about model horses. I hope you enjoy them! Feel free to share them with your friends or post links to them on your club emails, bulletin boards and favorite sites (links to them only please.)

Learn About Mohair Manes and Tails for Breyer Horse Models

2011-04-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

I've added a new article to About.com today on mohair manes and tails for model horses. I don't own any Faye Cohen models, and she's by far the customizer cited the most often as the 'favorite' among model horse collectors for hair manes and tails. I do, however, own a Maestas, and I love Kathy's vintage 1980s work. Models featured in the article are from my collection.

Click the link below to enjoy -

Learn About Mohair Manes and Tails for Breyer Horse Models

Inspiration-Make Model Horse Dioramas and Props

2011-04-12T09:17:00.000-07:00

I used to love going to miniature shows, museums, anything that had lots of really cool minis for the inspiration factor. Judging model horse shows is like that for me too; whenever I see the cleverness and creativity in the collecting community, I get psyched to head down to my basement lair and start mixing paint or finding ways to use bits and pieces of scrap lumber for a model horse project.

This week I interviewed model horse prop maker extraordinaire Kevin McFarland. Kevin's humble, modest, and generous, and also incredibly funny. He gave so much time to the interview that I ended up with two articles: the first, an interview about his model horse prop and diorama making, the second a great 8-page piece with tips on everything from making realistic mountains and water scenery to why it's important to make your own trees for miniature model horse fun.

Thank you Kevin for your time and talents. Here are the links to the articles. The photos today are all Kevin's work and appear in the articles.

An Interview with Model Horse Prop Maker Kevin McFarland

Expert Tips from Model Horse Prop Maker Kevin McFarland - lots of easy tips you can use with photos

I keep staring at this wondering how it can be a miniature!

Love the jump and the model!

Stop Resin Theft Group Formed

2011-04-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

I've officially launched the "Stop Resin Theft" group today comprised of the hobby's casting companies, several major artists, and others who love Artist Resin model horses and hate to see artists' works compromised by theft and poor copies. What the group will do is examine the current problem, explore various options, weigh the pros/cons and costs of the options, and brainstorm and share creative ideas for marking resins somehow so that the hobby can tell an authentic release from a fake. After that, our group's task will be public awareness and sharing the standard with anyone else interested in adopting it.

This is a volunteer effort on my part and everyone else participating. My idea is that we all pitch in and we all share and reap the benefits of whatever we come up with. Theft hurts everyone, so it benefits everyone to put an end to it (or at least make it easy for collectors to tell the real from the fake.)

How and what we will come up with is anyone's guess. If you are interested in helping, please send me an email at jeannegrunert@dishmail.net. Please let me know a few things about you such as how long you have been collecting, sculpting, etc. I need to monitor who is in the group and I can't have it an open group since we don't want the culprits joining to learn and outsmart us! (That's like the U.S. Mint inviting counterfeiters into the vaults to watch how the $100 bill is watermarked.)

Let's hope we find an affordable solutions we can all be happy with! Cheers!

Amazing Model Horse Pictures

2011-04-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

Andrea Kehrer of Germany just bought a Red Fox foal from us at EquinArt Creations (and a Kermit cat too) and she sent me a link to see her Red Fox. I clicked the link, expecting to see photos of a painted Red Fox....only to find her site. The text is in German which I cannot read, but boy oh boy - these are the most realistic model horse dioramas I have ever seen. The barn setups are amazing! Even her little dolls have knitted jackets. There's a kid's bike in the barn, barn cats peeking over the edge of the hayloft, you name it.

Check out her site, Black Forest Ranch.

Andrea you do amazing mini work!

Make Backgrounds for Model Horse Show Pictures - Make Dioramas and Backdrops for Model Horse Photo Shows

2011-04-05T16:07:00.000-07:00

New articles! Free and cheap stuff to craft into really cool dioramas and backgrounds! Hey, what more could you want? I love model horses. I have since I first got my hands on my big sister's palomino Breyer Family Arabian Stallion. I'm a forty-something obsessed with models.

Let's have fun tonight. Start with some free crafty stuff to make nifty dioramas and photo show scenes:

Make Backgrounds for Model Horse Show Pictures - Make Dioramas and Backdrops for Model Horse Photo Shows

Metal Horse Models, Including Pewter Micro Minis

2011-04-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

Mr. Pennington's gifts to me, above.

Just posted two articles to About.com this week and thought I'd share. One is about collecting metal model horses. The two pictured with my article and here are about 3" (the silver one) and 6" (the brown metal one). They are very special to me, and here's the story behind them.

When I was around 8 years old, my oldest sister Mary was studying to be a nurse and was in her last year of college. She took a part time nursing position, more like a nurse's aid, working for a man named Mr. Pennington. Mr. Pennington was paralyzed from the waist down and required nurse's aids almost round the clock. He had a Collie dog named Friday, and while he was grumpy and slightly bitter, I liked to visit him. I was a weird kid; I liked to visit old people. I had a regular route around my house and visited many of them. Mary would stop by to pick up her pay check or talk to Florence, the head nurse, and I would sit in Mr. Pennington's living room and visit with him and play with Friday. I think he liked it.

Mr. Pennington had a photograph of a gorgeous palomino Arabian stallion in his living room. It dominated the side table between two chairs. He had horse things everywhere in his house - pictures on the walls, statues, books, and photographs. Photos of him riding, photos of beautiful hunters and Arabians and more. He would tell me stories about his horses.

His story was a sad one, and now that I am an adult and I think about Mr. Pennington, I understand why he was bitter and grumpy.

He had owned an Arabian breeding farm and rode horses his entire life. He was like me (and probably you if you are reading this) - horse mad. He loved horses. He lived for his horses.

And then he went in for back surgery. The surgeon made a mistake of some kind. Mr. Pennington was left partially paralyzed. These were the days before anyone knew about riding for the handicapped or before programs like that were available...nowadays, my friend Katie, who runs HorseAbility on Long Island, could probably get him onto one of her schoolies and he'd be riding somehow (Katie would see to it I am sure). But in the 1970s that wasn't known.

Here's the ironic twist to the stories: a year or two after my visits with Mr. Pennington, I injured my ankle playing at my friend's house, and had to have an orthopedist set it and put it in a cast. It ended up being the same orthopedist who had treated Mr. Pennington. On Long Island, a hugely populated suburb of New York City, the odds of that are pretty incredible....

My ankle is, thankfully, okay.

Mr. Pennington gave me two items and I treasure them to this day. One has always been on my desk, and it is on my desk today. It is a large ceramic mug of some kind with a silver handle and a beautiful kind-faced gray cob, exquisitely painted, rendered on the side. I remember Mr. Pennington's gruff voice as he handed it to me: "Here. You can drink your milk from this." I never did. I kept it and use it for a pen holder on my desk. It's there today.

The other items he gave me were the two metal horse statues. I told him all about Breyers, of course, and model horses, but oddly he had neither. When I think back, all of his horse-related items were of very fine quality and I suspect he was wealthy (he did have round the clock nurses and a big house, plus he had owned that Arabian breeding farm.) I used to dream as a kid that Mr. Pennington would give me a horse, but he gave me these two metal horse statues, and today they are part of my model horse collection.

I love these items and they remind me of those visits to Mr. Pennington, the stories he told me of his Arabians and how he fueled my desire to learn to ride one day.

Enjoy the two articles here! The first one is about collecting metal model horses and the second is a how-to, giving you instructions on how to prep them for painting. These instructions are useful for Maggie Bennett's pewter micro minis too, which I used to sell through EquinArt Creations but which you can now buy directly from Maggie at www.maggiebennett.com.

Cheers! Enjoy - links below:

A herd of unpainted Maggie Bennett Micros

Three Easy Model Horse Craft Projects for Kids

2011-03-31T12:35:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to think that more craft projects for the kiddos will help the hobby in general....you know, get the kids involved more in the hobby, get them to love Breyers more, learn new things.....I put together this list of three articles with easy crafts for beginners. I know I am a beginner at crafting, tack making and such, so it is with thankfulness that I can give a big SHOUT OUT to Sue Sudekum who gave me permission to use her how-to-make an arena article and pictures. Thank you also to Andrea Robbins for permission to use that gorgeous photo of her dressage champion. She has amazing performance setups!

Here is the link: Quick and Easy Model Horse Craft Projects to Make

Stopping Resin Thefts

2011-03-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

This week yet another friend forwarded me an email about resins being ripped off. It breaks my heart when I see such things. It's usually someone in another country than the USA, which makes it harder for American artists to do anything about it - plus in some cultures, copying a work isn't even seen as a crime. I think that in general the people doing this know that they might be doing something wrong, but then again, I once had a person send me a book to edit in which she had blatantly copied entire chapters out of various textbooks and insisted it was okay to put that in her final self-published book because she had "credited" the original author. (It's not okay; it's plagiarism and theft; I bowed out of the project after telling her so.) So you get all kinds of people interpreting all kinds of things.

The bottom line is that there are people who think that if they buy a resin they have the right to copy it and recast it and sell the copies. Or they think it is okay to change a mane or tail or something small and cast it and sell it. Such actions hurt the artist, who spend so much time and talent to create the original sculpture. They hurt the companies producing the resins, because the phony casts are often so poorly made they fall apart, making consumers think it's the ORIGINAL company's fault. They hurt resellers, from companies like my own EquinArt Creations to individuals selling resins. Once a copy gets out there, it makes it harder for everyone involved to continue working.

So what to do? I'm not one to sit around and wring my hands and worry. I'm one to put my nose to the grindstone and work As soon as I heard about yet another resin being copied, I offered to lead a group of people investigating ways to protect Artist Resins from copyright infringement.

I have no idea what will happen but I do know that some artists have experimented with bar coding, magnets and other things to set their work apart from the forged copies. I myself have thought of a hallmark akin to what pottery companies and others put on their works - something difficult to forget but that will set an authentic resin apart from forged ones.

Regardless of where this goes, if you are interested in participating I will be forming a group to work on the problem and come up with a model horse industry solution. Please contact me through EquinArt Creations and let me know of your interest in being part of the SOLUTION to the problem.

Let's stop forgery once and for all, and keep artist resins the authentic treasures they are.

Types of Bases Supports for Model Horses

2011-03-26T06:04:00.000-07:00

I've prepared a picture overview of different bases used for various model horses - Breyers, Artist Resins, others. I didn't include Stones or a few other models, but this is a good overview of bases, how they're used, and the many types you'll see in the model horse world.

Click the link below to read the full article, and feel free to share with your friends!

Types of Bases Supports for Model Horses

Making Bases for Model Horses

2011-03-25T06:47:00.000-07:00

New show model - KGs Hearts a Breakin

I never thought about adding bases to my tippy Breyers until Kollean Gouyton tempted me with this customized and repainted G3 Belgian....he's the latest addition to my herd, and another beautifully painted horse model from Kollean. I'd noticed of course that the Belgian tips. I'd tried photographing him and wondered if my table had warped or something. I have four original finish (OF) Belgians and for each one, I had to bunch up the sheet covering the table just a wee little bit to make sure they stood okay, or tilt them, or take the image at an angle to make sure the horse model wouldn't fall over in the middle of the picture.

Then I saw the Belgian that Kollean had painted and I asked her, "Why the base?"

"Because that model always falls over," she said, and it was a "duh!" moment for me.

You should see my model horse collection and the lengths I go to prevent the domino effect. At my old house in Floral Park I had a shelf mounted on the wall in my basement and had my Breyers up on the shelf. But you know what happens when you've got a tippy horse - darn Breyer Buckshot, why did I ever buy so many Reeves models when they first bought the company? I had more models falling over in the early 1990s than was smart but it took me a while and several scratched and scuffed domino tumbles to figure out to 1) turn some models at an angle so that if one goes over, they don't take out the whole line 2) put something between them and 3) fix the darn tippy ones (or don't buy them. Ugly Buckshot.)

Kollean taught me the simple tips I'm sharing in this new article on About.com for adding bases. I'm sure you have your own method; it's pretty easy, and I plan to stock up on Apoxy Sculpt to fix a bunch of tippy models.

Please click the link to read my article. Feel free to share the link or repost to your website, clubs and newsgroups too!

How to Add a Base to a Breyer Horse by Jeanne Grunert on About.com

An OF Belgian (yes, he tried to fall over) and KGs Hearts a Breakin with base

How to Prepare or Prep a Plastic Model Horse for Painting

2011-03-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

For beginning model horse collectors, starting a painting project is often scary. You're afraid to wreck your Breyers and you're not sure what to do. You crave those gorgeous painted horse models you see online but where to start?

I've written very simple instructions for beginners who want to learn prepping skills with cheap, dime store plastic models. I used a plastic model horse here that feels similar to Safari and Schleich toys, so I think these techniques would work well on those brands too, although I have not tested them.

My painting skills are at the beginner level, so as I write more about painting model horses I am going to use (with permission of course) photos from friends who paint much better than I do. Like playing the piano, my head is crammed with information but my hands cannot translate it into reality! So I will rely on people more skilled than I and do what I do best - write about it.

Here's the link to the article. Enjoy and please feel free to share it!

How to Prepare or Prep a Plastic Model Horse for Painting

My First Proxy Showing Experience

2011-03-17T06:24:00.000-07:00

Bravio Artist Resin, sold thru EquinArt, painted by Sheri

Sheri Rhodes sent me photos from Carolina Gold Classic Live, which was held last weekend. My models didn't win anything but it sure was fun to see them in the show ring! Below are photos from the show. My models are noted; the performance setups are NOT my horses but they were so amazing I had to share the pictures. Thank you to Julia, the show host, and to Sheri as well as Morgen Kilburn for giving me updates on the show and helping me proxy show for the first time. I will be back - hopefully next year in person!


Look to the left - that tiny model is KGs Snow Fire, my photo show champ micro mini	.

My Arabian, KGs Desert Oasis King, sculpted by Maggie Bennett, painted by Kollean Gouyton

NOT my performance setup - but it is amazing. Whose is this???

Pakced show hall!

The Story of a Very Special Model Horse: Sultan's Golden Prince

2011-03-10T06:58:00.000-08:00

This morning I opened my inbox to see show results from MFBA, the Model Foal Breeders Association, a model horse club that I have enjoyed since around 1980 or so when Doris Rau founded it. I used to get their paper newsletter, stapled with giant industrial staples. In the days before the Internet, those homemade and photocopied model horse "magazines" and newsletters were the way collectors connected with each other. I'd eagerly await my issues of MFBA or Hobby Horse News or whatever else I subscribed to. I would read them so much my copies would fall apart. I'd use a pencil to circle sales ads. I bought many model horses that way, and that is how I saw the notice that Sultan's Golden Prince was for sale.

I first saw his name in show results in 1979-1980. A woman named Alice Bulson used to run a photo show series. These were the very first photo shows I'd ever entered, and I remember seeing Sultan's Golden Prince's name on all the results. This little Arabian colt seemed to sweep all the foal and color classes. He was owned by Susan Peplinski.

I volunteered to judge a show for Alice's show series and when Susan Peplinski's photos arrived in the mail, I tore open the envelope over the dining room table to flip through the photos. There he was! I saw a breathtaking image of a chestnut Arabian colt, lying down, with moist, dewey, realistic eyes....a soft gaze....she had taken the photo outside with grass perfectly sheared so it did not interfere with his china perfection, and the background blurred into an Impressionist smear of golds and greens that showed off his sparkling chestnut coat. I fell in love with him as judges in the past had. I wanted him.

I don't know how many months or years later it was when I saw a sales ad in MFBA from Susan Peplinski. I wrote away for her sales list and there he was....for sale...Sultan's Golden Prince. $5. I could hardly believe it. Why was she pricing her champion foal so low? I don't know and I never found out. I just remember hopping onto my bicycle and pedaling like mad to Fidelity Federal Bank on Covert Avenue, clutching my saved birthday money and nervously asking the teller for a money order. I mailed it outside the bank with shaking hands. In those days, you just mailed away for models and hoped for the best....you had no way of knowing if the model was already sold, and it took about a week to mail a letter off, then a week to get a reply, so two weeks would have passed before I would have known for sure if Sultan's Golden Prince was still available.

I waited. I waited. Then I came home from school to find a square cardboard box on the dining room table, the place in the house where my mom sorted the mail and left it in piles for everyone. Inside the box, packed in newspaper, was Sultan's Golden Prince.

That was over 25 years ago, and I have kept him safe through multiple moves, through good times and bad. He remained on my model horse shelf in the basement until I was in college, then he moved to a shelf in the room I used for a study. When I got married, he was packed away with my other models for 11 years since our tiny apartment had no room. Every once in a while I would open the box in the basement and check my models and I always checked on Prince.

After 11 years of saving, scrimping and waiting, we moved to the house in Virginia, and at last, I had a place to display my models. Sultan's Golden Prince is on the top shelf of my china cabinet gazing at me as I type this. He is a little worn around the edges, and his Josef tag - for he is indeed the Josef china lying foal from the 60s or 70s - is worn, but still legible. But he is no less lovely than when I first set eyes on him around 1980 or so.

Today I opened my email to find the MFBA show results. Sultan's Golden Prince, the horse model I'd longed for as a child and treasured for over 25 years, took home a first place as an OF Arabian Colt.

There was something truly splendid, truly miraculous, about that moment. Seeing his name there, with memories of childhood and seeing his name on show results so many years ago....the feeling of mystery, of "rightness" when I found him for sale...he was meant to be; he was meant to be here with me; and he remains a childhood treasure I'll never part with.

New Month, New Model Horse Projects

2011-03-07T13:17:00.000-08:00

New month, new model horse projects on the work bench. I'll be posting a whole bunch more "how to" and project instructions on About.com this month. My editor is trying to get a dedicated email list together so we can send our just model horse newsletters, but in the meantime, bookmark or follow this blog so you can get the latest articles.

I have a package of really neat little micro mini models I picked up at a discount store called Rose's here in Farmville (don't laugh, Facebook friends - there really IS such a place and it is where I do my grocery shopping!). For $1 - yes, big spender that I am - I snagged six plastic micro minis. Like nearly every mass produced discount model I've bought that was made in China, they are painted the strangest colors. The bay (I think it's supposed to be a bay) looks purple, the white horse has these weird gray areas I'm not sure what that's supposed to be, and the chestnut is just kind of red with a black mane and tail plopped on. Although it's easier to work on Traditional scale models for sure, I'm using these guys as my project guinea pigs. I stopped painting models umpteen years ago but have picked up my brush again, mostly to customize my own models and see where it takes me.

I also have a medallion sculpture on my workbench. Yes, a sculpture. Ha! You thought I was just about marketing other people's resin creations, right? Not so fast! I sculpted horses many years ago too, while in high school. A stallion I sculpted was on display at school and was STOLEN - yup, stolen - from the display case, so I guess it was pretty good. I stopped sculpting and working with ceramics when I graduated, but have since used Sculpey clay to sculpt flowers and such. I have a little flower arrangement of Sculpey iris flowers in my bathroom that I made, and I decided to try my hand at medallion sculpting since it seemed less intimidating than a full sculpture. I have one horse sculpture that I made left from those days. He's hiding in the back of my office china cabinet, about LB scale, peeking out shyly from near a Breyer Shetland pony.

The garden is revving up though, my housework is piling up, and my regular work is piling up too, so I'm not sure how much time I will have for the model horse projects. Given that I have to write about many of them, maybe I will pretend and call them "work."

How to Proxy Show Model Horses at Live Shows

2011-03-05T10:51:00.000-08:00

Here's the article I promised you on proxy showing your model horses. Enjoy!

How to Proxy Show Model Horses at Live Shows

Of Model Horses and Cats

2011-03-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

....cattiness, that is, not the Pierre-is-great kind of cat (although yes, he is a great cat, thank you for noting.)

I've noticed a resurgence lately of the catty vibe that turned me off to the hobby many years ago, and that unfortunately turns many others off, too. I'm talking about people rushing to "red light" transactions on MHHR or other places and then never going back and updating people on the outcomes, so that the 'red light' is left out there, making other people not want to do business.

I'm talking about people who like to gossip, and backbite, and spread rumors about other collectors. I'm talking about people who like to make fun of other people's painting, hairing techniques or sculpting.

I'm tired of it, and I'm betting you are too.

I'm a 40-something year old woman who still collects and enjoys model horses. I started photo showing and writing to hobby penpals when I was a kid, probably around 11 or 12 years old, and I had a blast. I know that a lot of hobbyists are girls in that age bracket, but many are like me - men and women who grew up with models and love them for the sheer pleasure of owning a gorgeous Amirah resin, or a new Breyer Treasure Hunt model, or a Peter Stone one of a kind painted plastic.

The fact is, the Internet has, I think, made the bashing worse. People hide behind "Jane Breyerhorse" monikers on Facebook and pretend they are someone else, and it's easy to set up a gmail account with a fake name. They run out, poke sticks at someone, then run back into their holes to hide, giggling behind their hands. In the meantime, someone's livelihood is ruined, someone's reputation is trashed, and someone's feelings are hurt.

I know that sometimes such posts can be helpful. Last year, someone alerted me to a scammer buying Arabian resins and recasting them, then selling fake and badly made casts. Because of that alert I was able to keep watch on our resins and protect many of the artists who work with my model horse company, EquinArt Creations.

Yet at the same time, I see more often than not people rushing to judgment, people hearing only half of a story and then jumping on the bandwagon.

I think we need to stop the nonsense. We need to think twice before we finger point, think twice before we say something negative in public about someone's artwork, think twice before 'red lighting' someone on a review board.

We need to send private emails to people if they ask for critiques. We need to be kind and considerate of others' feelings, especially on public forums such as Model Horse Blab and Facebook. We need to realize that often, we have only a part of the story - we rarely have the whole story.

What do you think? Have you noticed a rise in the cattiness factor lately? How does it impact your interactions as a collector?

Entering My First Live Model Horse Show

2011-03-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

Cool Whip artist resin, sculpted and painted by Candace Liddy

Next weekend, I will be entering my first live model horse show, albeit by proxy. Proxy showing means that someone stands in for you and takes your models to the show for you. (I just wrote an article today for About.com about proxy showing; it will be published in a day or two. I'll link to it so you can read the entire piece yourself!). My good friend Sheri Rhodes will be taking my models with her to the show. As you can imagine, I am sending her almost exclusively EquinArt Creations model horses - artist resin model horses my company and the artists we represent have produced over the years. These are ones I've purchased for myself, and are in my own personal collection, along with a few that are currently for sale. If you're going to Carolina Gold Live, please DO check them out!

It's kind of weird to be psyched about a live show I'm not attending myself, but I am excited that some of my model horses will get to make their debut. There's the beautiful Meckinzie resin Kollean Gouyton painted for me - KGs Summer Promise. There are my Stablemate scale Maggie Bennett Quarter Horses, both painted for me by Lisa Bickford. And then my gorgeous, favorite, lovely Red Fox, sculpted and painted by my dear friend Candace Liddy. She took home her first photo show championship in February and I heard from one of my customers that her custom painted Red Fox NAN qualified at her first show, so I am hopeful for my gal.

Tonight I pack them up and make up a manifest with photos so Sheri will know which horses are which and enter them for me. Wish me luck and I will post results here of how my favorite models do!

Red Fox, sculpted and painted by C. Liddy and in my personal collection.

Update on the FAS Fakes

2011-02-24T07:08:00.000-08:00

Remember my obsession or "fas-cination" with the Family Arabian Stallion (FAS) fakes? Perhaps I should say fas-cimiles. Really, how many bad FAS jokes can you make in one blog?

I'd collected these little plastic toys as a child, but somewhere along the way they disappeared. I can't remember if I sold them or tried my hand a repainting them and threw them out. Either way, I stumbled over them again on eBay and suddenly had to have them.

I won an eBay auction for three matte FAS copies. I bought two on eBay with a wonderful metal coach. They were charcoal gray FAS copies, and I'd been hoping to take off the harness and reuse the coach, but unfortunately someone glued the metal harness onto the FAS so right now the whole setup is on a desk in my office. I found two more on MHSP, both glossy and both colors I'd had when I was a kid. When I opened the box I yelled "Pepper! Cinnamon!" which were the named I'd given them as a child.

I snagged a Traditional scale FAS copy too in a lovely really ugly cream and blue color that might get repainted or not, depending on my whims. Someone even included a running stallion copy, also in small scale, with my FAS!

I wonder who made them? How many colors they made? Why do I care about copies of Breyers - what's the fascination? Who cares? I love my big and small FAS.

Artist Resin Foal Champion

2011-02-23T05:49:00.000-08:00

Amazing Grayce, my Artist Resin Red Fox sculpted & painted by Candace Liddy

This is one of my very favorite Artist Resins, and today I opened my mailbox to find she'd won Champion Foal in the February TOPSA photo show! She is the Red Fox Traditional Scale stock horse filly, hand-painted by Candace Liddy for me into this lovely chestnut. She even has tiny painted eyelashes. I love this model and she has a prize position on my shelves in the office so I can see her every day. I am so thrilled she won a prize!

Dressage Saddles for Model Horses

2011-02-17T05:07:00.000-08:00

Today's article for About.com continues my series on English performance with a discussion of dressage saddles and pads for model horses. The biggest mistake I see as a photo show judge are inappropriate pads. A dressage pad is white and square. You may find colored square pads at tack stores, but generally English riders use those colored quilted saddle pads for schooling. It's white, white, white for dressage, sometimes with black piping but always square. You can make a dressage pad from felt or a few pieces of white cotton and felt.

Here's the link to my article: Dressage Saddles for Model Horses

Dressage for Model Horses

2011-02-14T06:42:00.000-08:00

The first time I rode a dressage test, I was on my favorite school horse, a Thoroughbred named Remington. He was a tall, lanky bay with a white star, and he was my best pal for lessons. I was 18 years old and it was a warm June day. My trainer, Cindy, had the entire adult class ride out into the big grass field, and there she began working with us on a simple training level test. I never worked so hard in my whole life. My entire body but especially my abdomen (my center) ached after that lesson. It was there that I learned that dressage, while it looks easy if done well, is the hardest discipline of all.

Over the years my love for this elegant, historical art for has intensified. I had the great pleasure of seeing a performance of the Spanish Riding School when they toured America, and in 1996 I rode my first musical freestyle, again on a school horse in a lesson, but it was the most fun I have ever had. Both times I've ridden freestyle, we've used music by Franz Schubert - the Poet and Peasant Overture and the March Millitaire. The March Militaire is like the ultimate dressage music. In the Renaissance and Baroque periods, military parades were dressage exhibitions and vice versa, so perhaps Schubert was familiar with that when he composed that wonderful march. I love dressage so much that when I saw a video of Robert Dover rising a musical freestyle on You Tube, I actually started to cry at the beauty of it. Maybe that's about as nerdy as a math geek crying over a beautiful logic proof, but honestly, isn't a good Kur or freestyle like poetry in motion?

I've begun a series of articles on dressage for model horse for About.com that I hope you'll enjoy. First, I wrote a short piece with lots of pictures on different molds and makes of models that I feel might do particularly well in dressage, including some Artist Resins. Now if your favorite isn't listed here please don't think that I don't look at it like a lovely dressage horse - I can only use images that either 1) I took - with horse models I personally own or 2) images with permission by the owners. Sometimes when I post articles I've written to collectors asking for permission to use their photos but they just didn't get back to me in time, so I run with something else. (By the way, if you want to share any photos with me, I would really appreciate it. You can contact me through EquinArt Creations or my Facebook page.)

Please enjoy....

...and more coming this week!

My FAS Conga Line Continues to Dance Away on the Shelves

2011-02-12T06:12:00.000-08:00

I would love someone to explain the fascination with the FAS, the Family Arabian Stallion by Breyer. I know so many collectors who, like me, just love that mold. I love almost all of Maureen Love Calvert's sculptures, whether they're HR or Breyers, and there is that sweetness, that softness in the model's expression that I always associate with her work.

I added two new FAS to my collection since Christmas. I found a fairly good condition glossy bay, probably circa 1958-1959. He's got his fair share of rubs so he's not even photo showable, but he's lovely all the same.

Then there is this beauty - Khalife. I bought him almost sight unseen on eBay for pennies. There was as photo of him there but it was one of those "I just stuck this model on a table and snapped a picture" with a bad angle and blurry look and poor lighting. Oh well. For pennies and a FAS, I chanced it, and I am glad I did. He's in better shape than the seller seemed to indicate - a few butt rubs but that's it. I could actually photo show this guy.

He's got these groovy circles all over him that I guess are someone's idea of dapples. Breyer dapples are crazy, don't you think? I bought an Azteca when that mold first came out and it came and I thought "wow, that's not dapples, it's like Jackson Pollack went crazy on a model horse". We're talking about funky big dabs of white paint on a light gray body. My Khalife looks like someone took a circle-shaped scrapbooking tool and just dabbed it randomly on his chest, neck and barrel.

The face on this one, though, is truly well painted with really nice eyes and shading. I have him out on my desk so I can look at his pretty self while I work.

I am also really grateful to another collector who saw my post on MHSP and sent me a little FAS knock off to add to my conga line. I have 6 now! Even a matched pair of charcoal gray mini FAS pulling a huge carriage I found on eBay. I've got glossy, wacky colors and more. I am still looking for the mustard-colored palomino FAS knock off with the black mane and tail. The epitome of a fugly model horse but I don't care - it's all FAS to me!

Should EquinArt Sponsor a Model Horse Magazine?

2011-02-09T08:17:00.000-08:00

After the news broke this month that Just About Horses is moving to an all-digital format, a few collectors emailed me to ask if I was interested in starting a model horse magazine. I am, but I'm not sure which direction to take it in. I'd love for your advice and comments on this and am open to suggestions.

I know that Utterly Horses publishes a general collector magazine. There's Model Horse Performance, to which I subscribe and love. There are a few "art horse" kind of magazines - The Horse In Art, Art Horse - both of which focus more on general equine art and bronzes than model horses. So we have a general magazine, a performance showing magazine, and several in the art market.

What would YOU like to see?

If I do go ahead with this plan, the magazine would need a name. What is a good name?

And lastly....if I do go ahead with this....I am not taking a subscription. Instead, I'll offer each edition for sale separately. I honestly don't want to take money for a subscription and then find I get behind in my work or it's spring and I'm needed outside to help John with the outdoor chores and I have no time to finish a magazine. If I aim for a quarterly publication, offered in print and as a PDF, what do you think?

Share your comments below or drop me an email at equinart creations at yahoo dot com (and that's to fool those stupid spammers out there...!)

Instructions for Beginners on How to Host a Model Horse Photo Show

2011-02-09T05:09:00.000-08:00

Enjoy my latest how-to article on About.com. I've written a step by step article on how to host a photo show. Most of the readers of this blog are far enough advanced that this is probably old hat, but I figure there are some new collectors and younger collectors who might like these instructions. Enjoy!

Link below -

Instructions for Beginners on How to Host a Model Horse Photo Show

Understand English Jumps - English Jumps for Model Horse Show Classes

2011-02-08T05:44:00.000-08:00

The link below starts my series on jumps, jumping, hunters and all things English performance. I will also have several how-to articles this month to help you make props for your English performance classes. Enjoy!

Understand English Jumps - English Jumps for Model Horse Show Classes

Collecting Model Horse Families - Breyer Horse Model Families to Collect and Enjoy

2011-02-08T05:36:00.000-08:00

Do you collect model horse families? I started this year when my FAS obsession threatened to overwhelm my small display space. By focusing on families - stallion, mare and foal - I could accumulate each color. And it gave me an excuse to say to my husband, "But honey - I NEED that model - it completes the family set!"

Enjoy my latest article for About.com, below -

Collecting Model Horse Families - Breyer Horse Model Families to Collect and Enjoy

Sneak Peek at My Model Horse Work Bench

2011-02-07T05:38:00.000-08:00

Traditional scale jump standard with flower pot

Saturday was cold, rainy and gray, and even though the dog hair tumbleweeds threatened to overwhelm my home, I just couldn't bring myself to do chores. I'd spent a lot of time this week working on the manuscript for my next book, a marketing book that's been in the works quite a while. I needed a break! So I set up my work bench in the basement.

First things first: had to make sure the radio worked and it could tune into a good station.

Then with the 80s tunes rocking, I set to work...making a jump to photograph for new articles for About.com

I have the best husband in the world. Not only did he help me saw the little dowels, when he saw me making flower pots, he ran outside and scavenged some heather from the flower garden to give it more dimension. He was also busy sketching something; he's got a whole arena setup in mind for me. "You need a big piece of plywood...and we need some dirt...."

The pets were actually well-behaved around all the crafting material for a change. Pierre came downstairs and played in the shipping boxes for a while. If you ever get a resin shipped from Virginia and you find a few gray cat hairs in it, blame Mr. Pierre!

Enjoy the sneak peek....and I hope to begin the article series this week to show you how you can make the cross rail jump too.

By the way, the materials for this jump cost $2. That's it. A whopping $2 at Lowe's!

On my workbench...painting ground poles with stripes

Model Horse Tack and Prop Making Fun!

2011-02-01T08:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, now I'm really psyched! I just bought my first-ever tack making kit from Melody Snow and it came today. I chose a Classic scale English bridle. I figured that because I rode English all those years and cleaned umpteen REAL snaffle and Pelham bridles in my day before horse shows, starting with tack I actually know first hand was a smart thing. I want to make tack to fit my beautiful CM Keen from Kollean Gouyton, KGs Harlem Prince, shown here. I'm sending him to his first live show in March and I will let you know how he does at the show. He is one of my favorite CMs now in my collection and I want to performance show him.

But I also went to Lowe's over the weekend and bought wood to make jumps. I'm going to make the jumps first, then document them for a how-to project for About.com. I have ideas to make all sorts of jumps. Again, I'm starting with things I know first hand. At most of the stables I rode at during college, the jumps would be piled at one end of the indoor arena. We'd assemble our own courses from various standards and poles. I helped fix up the jumps in the outdoor hunt course where I worked, too, so I have some firsthand knowledge of how a roll top is put together, a log fence and more. After I work out the logistics of making the project, I will document and share it on About.com so you can make one too!

I love having a bunch of winter model horse craft projects to work on. Somehow it makes me look forward to the weekend!

Brands of China and Plastic Model Horses to Collect, Show and Enjoy

2011-01-31T05:12:00.000-08:00

Below is a link to a roundup article I wrote that includes links to five different model horse company overviews so you can get to know some great brands to collect and enjoy. There's The Lakeshore Collection, fine china model horses; gorgeous Beswick models; Safari, Schleich and Peter Stone. I do not have Beswick or Safari models yet, but I hope to add "James and Dancing Bells", the Safari dressage horse and rider, to my collection this winter.

I spent Sunday afternoon browsing Lowe's and I came home with a bunch of stuff to build some model props. Each Friday I am going to try to post a new project to About.com, so watch for more great how-to articles!

Now here's the link - click to read:

Brands of China and Plastic Model Horses to Collect, Show and Enjoy

Make a Simple Braided Arabian Halter for a Breyer or Other Model Horse

2011-01-29T04:58:00.000-08:00

I wrote this simple how-to project this week thinking of all the young collectors at home on snow days. With another storm heading towards the northeast next week, I'm guessing our young Breyer collectors will enjoy making halters for their Arabian horses.

This week's project on About.com is below. Enjoy!

Click the link to read:

Make a Simple Braided Arabian Halter for a Breyer or Other Model Horse

Collecting Safari Model Horses - Safari Plastic Model Horses at Affordable Prices

2011-01-29T04:45:00.000-08:00

I wrote an overview piece, below, about Safari model horses. I can't find them in stores around where I live but I have my eye on several, especially "Dancing Bells" and James, the dressage set. I love dressage!

Please enjoy the article, below -

Collecting Safari Model Horses - Safari Plastic Model Horses at Affordable Prices

Two New FAS Coming!

2011-01-28T05:55:00.000-08:00

Hurray! Two new FAS (Family Arabian Stallions) are heading my way. I found a replacement for the JC Penney Liver Chestnut FAS I stupidly sold many years ago on eBay, and won him for a song. Then after I posted an ad on MHSP seeking more FAS knockoffs, a collector emailed me with a Traditional scale FAS knock off she had for sale. He's supposedly a lovely weird shade of blue and a hard plastic. Can't wait to see how ugly he is! If he's really bad, I'm using him for an About.com project. If not, he's going to join my growing herd of FAS knock offs.

In the meantime, I am still seeking the following models in very good condition. A few rubs or scratches are fine.

Bay 1950's FAM and FAF
Charcoal FAF

English Riding Clothes for Model Horse Show Dolls - Choose the Right Clothes for Model Horse Show English Classes

2011-01-28T05:29:00.000-08:00

Yours truly sporting proper equitation attire.

They say clothes make the man, or perhaps the woman, and in the English horse show ring, they're absolutely right. I showed equitation throughout college and beyond and attended more than my share of English shows and dressage shows. I decided to write an article about the proper attire for rider dolls in English classes. When judging performance at photo shows, the biggest mistake I see is riders in dressage and equitation wearing pinks - the red hunter jacket. It comes with Breyer dolls, but it's really only appropriate for show jumping and a few other disciplines, and upper levels at that.

Enjoy the article by clicking the link below. As always, you can post a link back to it from your site, but please do not reprint the entire piece.

Many, many thanks to Jane Cadwalader Schneider for permission to use her photograph.

English Riding Clothes for Model Horse Show Dolls - Choose the Right Clothes for Model Horse Show English Classes

Five Ideas to Focus Your Model Horse Collection and Have More Fun with Breyers

2011-01-27T06:27:00.000-08:00

Micro Mini Arabian stallion

I don't know about you, but if I don't give myself some limits, my model horse collection could quickly take over the house. In my early collecting years, I collected mostly Traditional scale Breyers and customized Breyers, with a few Hartlands thrown in for good measure. As an adult, I love minis - Little Bits or Paddock Pal scale and smaller, although I did spring for a few vintage Traditionals this year. Below is my latest article on model horses for About.com. I provide five ideas for focusing your collecting hobby. Enjoy!

Click the link below to read the full article:

Five Ideas to Focus Your Model Horse Collection and Have More Fun with Breyers

And yes, you can link back to any of my articles on About.com. The site doesn't allow reprints, but links into it are welcome, so feel free to share it!

Breyer Announces 2011 Breyerfest Special Run Model Horses, Event Details and Themes

2011-01-25T05:34:00.000-08:00

My new JAH finally arrived in the mail yesterday, and I thought I'd share the news about Breyerfest 2011 - here's a link to my article on About.com:

Breyer Announces 2011 Breyerfest Special Run Model Horses, Event Details and Themes

The photos in the Winter 2011 issue of Just About Horses of the dioramas from the 2010 Games were spectacular. Congratulations all of the talented artists who contributed to the project!

Breyer Rant

2011-01-22T06:02:00.000-08:00

I was Breyer's target market - at age 6!

I subscribe to the Haynet Yahoo Group and this week so many people have gone on Breyer rants it is making me sick. The whining and cries of "Breyer's just out to make a profit!" are driving me nuts. This is my rebuttal to all the people on Haynet complaining about Breyer's business policies.

Breyer Is a Business, Not a Charity
YES Breyer is out to make a profit. Who told you they aren't? Did you really think that Breyer, Stone, and any company producing models is doing so out of charity? What is so wrong with making money? Nothing. Making money is good. Companies that make money hire people and those people are now employed, and can buy goods and services in their local town, which puts money back into circulation in the economy. We want the economy strong, right? We want people employed, right? So we want companies to make money! Everyone, from the artist sculpting a horse model to the company producing a plastic toy horse wishes to make a profit. No one goes into business hoping to make a loss.

They are a company selling a product to make a profit. They are a business. The goal of businesses is to make money. I researched their business model for a graduate business school project back in the early 2000s. I found interviews with Breyer in trade newspapers and data at the Industry and Science Library in New York City on the toy industry. I can tell you that you the adult collector is not Breyer's target market. The horse crazy little girl, ages 8 to 13, is their primary market, with a secondary market of 4-8 year olds. Got it? That means they are going to come out with products that please THAT group - not you, the 40 something woman collecting models to show (that would be me).

That's why we now have purple and pink horses with long acrylic manes and tails, play sets like "Jane Becomes a Veterinarian" and plush toys instead of gorgeous new Traditional scale Arabians every year. Although let's be fair; the company has come out with some lovely new models in recent years. The new works by Kathy Moody and J. Lunger (Stablemate models) are some of my new favorites.

Just because a company seeks to maximize profits doesn't make it evil and greedy. Someone wisely posted that if Breyer doesn't make a profit they are going out of business. If they don't make profits, they cannot invest in new products. Hundreds of people worldwide will be out of work; yes, worldwide, because they outsource production to China and then do the painting here in the USA.

Breyer isn't a "bully" because they have stopped giving dealers free shipping or volume discounts. They probably should, but I don't have access to their financials, so I don't know what prompted their decision. I do know that if it came down to giving dealers incentives or staying in business, they're going to stop giving away the incentives.

Do you know how much it costs to produce a Breyer? I have researched this. I looked into offering a competing line of model horses. The costs were astronomical!

Here's a breakdown of all that it takes to make one new model horses. Again, I researched all of these steps between 2003-2004 for a major graduate school project when I was at New York University.

Pay a sculptor for an original work of art
Prototyping and first cast for molding
Making the metal mold for injection molding
Injection molding - China ships a minimum of half a container load. A container is half a tractor trailer load of products or thereabouts - it's measured by ocean freighters. But you are looking at paying thousands of dollars here.Remember, these aren't even painted yet!
Safety Testing - if you want to sell your products in the USA to children, they have to be safety tested and rates by an official organization. That costs a few hundred to several thousand dollars.
Painting - Breyers are hand painted by workers in the USA. At least they used to be. Let's assume each worker gets $20 and hour and can paint 4 models an hour.
Packaging - Design, print, and package each model. I don't know what this costs but assume $5 per model.
Shipping - with the cost of fuel rising, shipping on land once the models get here from China is expensive
Warehousing
Overhead and staffing - the profits from those model horses have to pay salaries of everyone from the receptionist to the janitor
Marketing - products need to be promoted. Dealer catalogs must be printed, ads placed, and much more
Copyrights and legal - you have to protect the artist effort, the logos, everything.

Do you see what I am getting at here? It's going to set the company back at least $20,000 and up (and that is a low estimate - the metal injection molds alone cost thousands of dollars) to roll out the next FAS. That cost does not include the overhead, the staffing, and Breyerfest - which is a gigantic promotional effort that must cost them a pretty penny. We complain about the costs of Breyerfest too, but I have always wondered if they even break even on it. Probably not.

Now you understand why they use and reuse basic molds to death, painting them different colors. Once you get a new mold completed, that's your sunk cost, a business phrase meaning that's the big chunk of your investment. The goals is to make money off of your sunk costs for as long as you can, and that leads me to my next point.

To expect the company to come out with gorgeous new Traditional scale models every year is absurd. In today's economy, with fewer children playing with imaginative toys and more kids craving electronic gizmos, I can almost bet you the farm that their sales of the model horses we all know and love are down. They have to make up the shortfall somewhere. How do you do that?

You create new products that sell well - but remember, their target market is children. So they are going to come out with more plush toys, fantasy toys, play sets and fewer of the artistic larger models (They tried that and many are discontinued; does that tell you something?)
You cut production costs - for a model horse company, the best way is to repurpose old molds. But remember that molds need retooling and maintenance and do wear out.
You cut marketing activities - and that's where the hue and cry over the dealer free shipping issues comes up.
You cut overhead and extras - you cut back on perks for employees, you start shutting the lights off earlier and you start recycling office supplies.
You lay people off. For any company, that's the last resort, much as people think companies are mean and heartless.

So frankly, I am not surprised that Breyer is cutting back. China is increasing costs on production of many goods. Shipping prices are through the roof. Kids are playing with fewer imaginative toys and craving whizbang gizmos. We the adult collectors make up such a small number of their sales that catering to our every whim is probably not going to happen. I wish it would, because frankly I no longer buy Traditional scale Breyers. The quality of the newer ones, from the plastic to the painting, displeases me. But that is MY choice as a consumer. I now prefer smaller scale pieces, vintage Breyers, and Artist Resins.

Give them credit though. They are cutting back in areas that the average consumer won't see. Will there be fewer dealers? Yes. My local Wal Mart stopped carrying Breyers and I think Tractor Supply is also phasing them out; they have no more shelf space for Traditional scale models and just a handful of Stablemates left. I need to ask them what's going on to find out why. As someone else pointed out, though, there are still many ways to obtain them online.

Nearly every wholesale company I have worked with, whether it was when I worked at Macy's in the junior's clothing department, at the garden center where I worked for many years, or now owning a model horse company like EquinArt Creations, has restrictions and requirements for retailers carrying their products. Whether it's displaying their logo, a minimum order size, or shelf space and display requirements, most have some set of standards. Producers often put retail sales restrictions or requirements on their products. Is it wise for Breyer to do this? Again, I don't know - I don't have access to their business plans. I can guess, however, that this was the least painful point they could come up with to continue making the products we know and love.

Please don't go after Breyer, Stone or any other model horse company just because they wish to make a profit. The smarter they get at their business methods, the better off we the collector will be in the long run....because they will still be in business, and we will still have access to gorgeous model horses.

Collecting Black Horse Models - Ideas and Tips for Collecting, Customizing and Photographing Black Model Horses and Breyer Horses

2011-01-21T05:27:00.000-08:00

The idea for this article came about thanks to readers seeking more information on black horse models. There are many black horse models produced in both original finish (OF) and customized, but often photographing them is challenging. I found that out when trying to photograph the Stablemate and the Artist Resin in my collection! Light tends to bounce off the black too much creating hard shadows. If you can put a piece of wax paper over the flash for indoor photos that dulls the harsh light enough to make it work well. Outdoor lighting is tricky, but the sand dune effect for my Aten Khamen resin was just too tempting.

Click the link below to read the article on About.com:

Collecting Black Horse Models - Ideas and Tips for Collecting, Customizing and Photographing Black Model Horses and Breyer Horses

Make a Woodland Scene for Photo Show Pictures of Breyers and Other Model Horses

2011-01-20T14:28:00.000-08:00

I had a blast last night creating the scenes and photographing them that you'll see in the article, below. I will post more photos from the photo shoot when I can get back downstairs with my camera and my minis and have some fun. In the meantime, here is this week's model horse project, posted to About.com. It contains instructions to make a woodland diorama, with ideas on cheap or next-to-free props. Enjoy!

Click the link below. Please DO share the link with your model horse friends and yes, you can post links (just not the articles themselves or the pictures) to you model horse websites.

Link -

Make a Woodland Scene for Photo Show Pictures of Breyers and Other Model Horses

Farmyard Fun Model Horse Photos

2011-01-19T15:51:00.000-08:00

I had to take a series of photos today for a forthcoming article on About.com. I took my pictures, looked at my mini collection, and started having FUN - Farmyard Fun. I couldn't resist. Enjoy the Schleich scenery and look for the article later this week!

I am on the "north" side of my forties and still playing with toys....gotta love it!

Model Horse Live Show VIDEO

2011-01-18T05:46:00.000-08:00

This is NOT my video but a link someone shared with me on You Tube. If you have never gone to a live show, you are in for a treat. They are so much fun and you get to see a mind-boggling array of gorgeous horse models, both OF and customized/resins. My favorite are the performance setups. The beer bottle jump in the performance ring on this video is just amazing. Enjoy!

Sharing Model Horse Hobby Information

2011-01-17T11:05:00.000-08:00

My collection circa 1980

I got a phone call today from someone who was searching for model horse hobby information online and encountered our EquinArt Creations website. He called to ask lots of questions about artist resin model horses. Like me, he'd been an avid collector of Breyer horses since childhood, and like me he got rid of his Breyers when he hit college and young adulthood. Now he's an adult and he was thinking about how much he loved his Breyers and his model horse collection and he was looking for a more grown-up way to enjoy the hobby.

I get calls like this a lot, and it's one of the aspects of running EquinArt Creations and writing for About.com that I love - being a sort of 'ambassador' for the hobby. I got involved in the model horse hobby through Just About Horses magazine in 1978. I hadn't realized before sending away for my first copy that there were people like me out there - people who not only collected Breyers but made little toy saddles, bridles, stables and more. Through the pages of Breyer's Just About Horses magazine, I learned about showing. I read Sandy Tomezik's article on photo showing and Sue Sudekom's articles on customizing and I tried everything I could.

Today, people learn about the hobby online. There are so many ways to collect, show and enjoy Breyers and model horses that it's almost mind boggling! You can...

Collect Breyers, Stones, Schleich or Safari models
Collect china models only like Hagen Renaker, Beswick, Lakeshore Collection
Collect Artist Resin model horses
Customize - paint, hair, reposition Breyers
Make tack
Make accessories like barns and wagons
Photo show
Live show

And I am probably leaving something out!

I'm in my forties now and every time I sit down with my model horses, it's like I've entered the wonders of childhood again. This weekend I had a few minutes and I sat down and played around with some hobby supplies to create a diorama for an upcoming article on About.com. I got so engrossed in my project that time slipped by. That's how I used to be as a child - I'd sit at the worktable in the basement and start braiding mini halters, or painting my models, and time would just slip by.

I love the fact that model horses can transport me effortlessly back in time. I love the creative aspects of the hobby, the painting, the crafting. Most of all though, I love the people in the hobby, the friends I have made, and sharing this wonderful miniature hobby with others like the person who called me today.

What do you love about model horses?

My collection today includes - what else? - artist resins like this Candace Liddy cutting horse.

English Saddle Types for Model Horse Shows - Showing Breyer Model Horses in English Performance Classes

2011-01-15T05:29:00.000-08:00

Yours truly schooling her horse circa 1990

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I rode English huntseat style for over a decade. I leased, trained, rode and showed several horses and loved work on the flat - that is, hunt seat equitation and then dressage. I enjoyed trail and popping my horse over the occasional cross rail, and the natural jumps we had out in the pasture as well as the roll top were fun to jump. Someone once told me the test to see if you're a real horsewoman or just a rider was taking apart a Pelham bridle, cleaning it, and assembling it. I've done that and more. So I guess I am a horsewoman!

I put that knowledge into this article for you on About.com to help you understand the differences among the various English saddles. I didn't cover Park (Saddleseat) or sidesaddles. I've always wanted to learn sidesaddle riding and had the pleasure of watching a few lessons in it given by the late, great Mrs. R, who learned to ride in England. But that was over 20 years ago, sadly, although I do have the books she recommended!

I cover the basics of construction and appearance. The first photo shows a white girth which would not be acceptable in the show ring, although it would be acceptable for hacking or schooling.

Enjoy! Link below -

English Saddle Types for Model Horse Shows - Showing Breyer Model Horses in English Performance Classes

One of my SM scale resins....saddle isn't mine...pad is way too big and not placed correctly for showing.

Breyer Horse Customization: Build Your Reference Library

2011-01-14T12:27:00.000-08:00

My latest model horse collecting article for About.com is on Building a Photo Reference Library for Model Horse Collecting. Whether you are just getting into customization or you simply want to do better in photo and live shows, building up a library of images of horses, setting, backgrounds, tack and everything horse-related is part of the fun of the hobby. I typically go to used book sales such as library book sales and buy up any horse books they have on hand. I have a great deal of experience riding English huntseat style, and some experience in dressage, but only a little bit in Western and no first hand knowledge at all of Western showing rules and such. I've shown horses in equitation and over fences, but never in Western reining or trail, for example. That's where my reference books come in handy. I look things up online but the photos in the reference books really help when I want some quick inspiration say for a breed or coat color. Try building your own reference library too!

Here's a link to the article again - enjoy! Build a Photo Reference Library

Artist Resin Model Horses: The Many Faces of Meckinzie

2011-01-14T06:42:00.000-08:00

I love the Little Bits scale pony Artist Resin Meckinzie by Michelle Platt. This is the sister resin to Ailin, which has a flowing mane and tail. Meckinzie, however, looks like every pony you've ever met that suffered at the hands of a loving little girl, with lots of braids and flowers dreamily intertwined into her too-long mane. I just love this sculpture.

Kollean Gouyton of Stone Wolf Creations painted my Meckinzie for me. Here she is, below.

And Mindy Berg sent me photos of a Meckinzie she painted for her customer....isn't this version gorgeous? I don't own this one but the new owner gave us permission to use the photos. Seems like we are all thinking pinto colors for Meckinzie, although I saw a dappled gray by Jeannine De Cuir that was breathtaking too.

Breyer Horses: Collect, Show and Enjoy Plastic Model Horse Foals

2011-01-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

Foals are another aspect of model horse collecting that I enjoy. While in real life I find the idea of raising a foal intimidating, plastic model horse foals offer a fun way to enjoy them for sure without worrying about training the little ones. I also like them because they are more affordable. I can buy a Traditional scale foal for around $5 or $6 on the secondhand market but pay double that for comparable Traditional scale adults. And, because they're small, you can fit more on a shelf. The more the merrier with model horses!

Here is the link to my complete article. Thank you again to Kollean Gouyton for permission to use her photos.

Breyer Horses: Collect, Show and Enjoy Plastic Model Horse Foals

Meet My Draft Horse Collection-Breyer Horses

2011-01-12T06:29:00.000-08:00

Dozer, my neighbor's Belgian draft horse

I love draft horses. I used to ride a Percheron/Paint cross gelding in lessons and he was a comfortable, calm, sensible and handsome mount. Ever since then, these gentle giants have fascinated me. My neighbor and good friend Patty has a retired Belgian drafter she rescued from somewhere who is also a pal; I'm on bath duty since I am very tall and can reach his back when he needs a scrub down!

Meet My Draft Horse Collection

Same models, above and below, just different lighting & backgrounds

My Breyer Stablemate draft horses are much easier keepers than the living equines, and although the fun level is different it beats having to muck stalls in an ice storm. I spent some time over the Christmas break trying out various backgrounds, lighting and settings on my camera with my Stablemate scale draft horses. I have the raw materials to make a woodland scene this week for About.com and hope to photograph that too. But in the meantime, here's a peek at my show photos and my growing collection of drafters. I have more that I haven't photographed yet and a Jethro Artist Resin model horses who needs clothes (paint) badly....but until then, here's a little glimpse of my show string.

Same horse as below - snow backdrop


Same horse as above - plain backdrop

And more of my draft horse collection.....


The "tree" at the right is actually a big old weed I left in the frame


I never realized how oddly proportioned the LB scale drafter is until I took his picture.

Everybody conga! Working on my SM Belgian conga line.

Model Horse Memories

2011-01-07T15:48:00.000-08:00

My Red Fox model, shown as "Amazing Grayce"

We were walking the dog today and talking about snow storms past as snowflakes whirled by our faces. My husband said, "They had early dismisssal in New York today."

"I remember early dismals," I said, "in the days when school didn't worry about letting all the youngsters out at noon." (because parents or at least Mom was home then.)

"What did you do on those Fridays, the best days when we had early dismissal?" my husband asked.

I felt a surge of happiness, a long-forgotten memory. "Oh," I said, remembering 8th grade, "I'd rush home, eat a grilled cheese sandwich, put on Herb Albert music on the stereo and start fussing with my model horses."

My husband grinned. "So what has changed?"

Nothing, really. That's the beauty of it. So many people lose sight of the joys of childhood over the years. They lose sight of what made them happy as children. I like to think that the signs of what makes our souls happy at the deepest core are the things we did for hours on end as children.

As a child, I loved nothing more than to stare at my Breyer catalog (circa 1976, 1978, and so on). Did you do this? I'd dream about the days when I was a grown up and could afford any model horse I'd want.

Now that I am a grown up I can't buy any model horse I want, but that's the irony of it, isn't it?

I'd read and reread all the model horse magazine....the Model Foal Breeders newsleter by Doris Rau,
Model Horse Hobby Gazette by Rebecca Hileman, Just About Horses. Fantasy was half the fun.

Now as a grownup, I still love a snow day when I can look at pictures of model horses and dream! My dreams turn now more towards what I can actually DO and create....a diorama to make....tack projects...but models still fill my waking dreams.

Did you love models as a kid?

Did you dream, too?

Stone Plastic Horses - Realistic Plastic Model Horses From Peter Stone for Collectors

2011-01-07T11:55:00.000-08:00

My latest model horse article. Enjoy!

Stone Plastic Horses - Realistic Plastic Model Horses From Peter Stone for Collectors

Ugliest FAS Knock Off Ever

2011-01-01T06:31:00.000-08:00

My regular readers know I love the FAS (Family Arabian Stallion) mold and all the FAS knock offs on the market. I stumbled across this one on eBay today. It's the ugliest FAS copy I have ever seen. It's like someone took the head of FAS, put the front end of the FAM on the body, and the back end of a FAS. It's a Franken FAS. Anyone ever seen the before?

View the Franken FAS here.

I'm tempted to bid just to add it to my FAS knockoff collection, but I think I'd have nightmares....