Carousel Costumes, for models?

Yes! I finished my first Carousel Horse costume this week, and wanted to share a few pictures here, and a little backstory I guess too!

When I first started cruising ebay, in early 2003, I ran across a seller Chey Ann Silver Fox (and I may have just butchered the first name, sorry, it's been a long time!) who was selling the coolest thing I had ever seen, Model Horse Carousel Costumes, all made out of leather, tooled and painted, and just awesome. I thought I would love to buy one one day, but I waited too long, as she dropped out of the hobby and no longer makes these lovely costumes! I managed to contact her though ebay (can't for the life of me recall her user ID anymore, gah.) about 2 years ago, and she was very nice, but said she probably won't be doing any more for now, but maybe some time in the distant future.

Fast forward to a few months back, one of the bead stores I buy from online was having a clearance on some really cool Swarovski crystals so I bought some, not knowing what I 'd be doing with them. So I get the crystals and begin to think of what I could use them for, and then I looked at my monitor and the wallpaper I currently was using,...pictures of Carousel horses from the Idaho State Fair I took the summer before last! Click!

So to make a long story kind of shorter, here it is, the first Carousel costume from my studio...but not the last, these things are fun!

Third Annual Holiday Halter sale!

Yep, I have been bugging you all with my holiday sale three years running, whew! *giggles*

Actually I am very proud to have quite a few new pieces to offer this year, and a few more on the way if I can get my errand running out of the way this week and get to my desk! The 5 pictured here are all available as of the time I am writing this, except for the copper/gold one, I have someone interested in it. (but wanted to share the picture anyway! ;0) ) I can be reached via email at mrsmelissage "at" msn "dot" com if anyone is interested in one of the pieces! (all priced at 35.00 except for the mini halter, which is 25.00)

Thanks for reading, I'm off to go take care of more pre holiday crazyness!

The last piece of the puzzle...

It's finished! I just about killed my neck with this one, but it was so worth it, it turned out exactly like I was hoping, and a pretty good representation of the original 'real horse' set as well!

I am now free and clear to do sales pieces, and a few pieces for Las Vegas Live, which will be here before I know it, time has flown!

Coming soon will be 4 holiday halters and a few of the royal show halters as feature in some posts below...and maybe a few wire/cable style halters as well, I haven't decided just yet. I am also planning on a Hunter green EDH costume as well as my first hand embroidered native set, so things will still be busy, just no one waiting on me, which will be very freeing.

Well, enjoy the pictures, I'm outta here for 10 days starting tomorrow, so I won't be able to post any for a while! Have a great Thanksgiving week everyone! :0)

The inspiration piece...

Busy Busy Busy!

This has been a great week of tying up loose ends, and boy did I have a LOT of ends to tie! I won't bore you (if there is a *you* that is, lol) with a bunch of text, here are some pictures!

OK, so I lied, here's a bit of text...The halter is the prize for a drawing I did on Halloween, the Pony is still a WIP, but he is coming along nicely, I have a poll going on to pick his color, he looks to be going towards Golden Palomino...

The Necklace is...wouldn't YOU like to know...;0)

I have one more item I'm working on here tonight, that should be wrapped up by tomorrow, I'll post it here when it's finished... Ok, back to work!

(click the pictures for gigantic sized pictures!)

Having a little fun!

So after a year's worth of working on these two items as I could (between moving, surgery, yard building, kid surgeries and daily 'Mom' stuff...not to mention a whole lot of other 'little' items!) I'm finally finally done! Woo! So with that under my belt, I trekked out into our semi frozen backyard to the dirt pile left from the pond excavation to take some fun pictures of the two sets I will be sending out this week. I've also included a picture of a Royal Show halter I created as part of a package that includes the costume on the left below...it turned out well I think.

I have noticed a certain pattern in my work, and maybe other artists/tack makers can relate. In the beginning, I was slow, things took forever it seems, but as I got better, I got fast, really fast, and now, that I find my attention for detail increasing in large leaps, I am back to slow again, does that make sense? Things that would take me three days take me a month, things that used to take a month take much much longer. I suppose it's just a natural progression, putting more and more detail into each piece and being ever more picky about what you send out into the world, it sure does impact the quality as well as the quantity, which isn't all bad, just kinda confusing. :0)

Well, back to the grindstone...there shall be more to come this week if it kills me!

Ta da!!!

Just a few quick pictures of Oberon all wrapped up, then I must go to bed (2:34 eek!) He won second place in an "other draft" class at a show in Boise ID on the 18th, I'm pretty proud of him!

I have so many more things wrapping up this week too, it's going to be crazy, but I'm working towards everything that is not for myself, or a sales piece in the works, to be out of here by Thursday the 20th! Wish me luck...:o)

Oh, and for fun I've included a pic of the Mindy I have been working on for my own collection, she turned out just how I had hoped!

Flow

There are times when 'it' just comes to you, for whatever reason, things just become more effortless, lately that has not been the case for me at all, until this week. I am seeing things differently for the first time in a long while, having lots of great nights of great progress, and that makes me feel so much better. My laundry pile has suffered due to this great burst of creative energy, but my commission pile is getting smaller and smaller! I'll put up a few pics of the most recent completions and good old WIP's, a few of which should be finished by next week, what a relief!