Yellow Native Halter in the Works

A few days ago, I started work on a new yellow native-style halter. I enjoyed making this one so much, that progress was really fast! Below are some (bad) photos that I took in a hurry between making cowrie shells.

And after sculpting and painting the decorations, the halter looked like this:

I'm just sculpting some additional cowrie shells to add to this halter while working on this blog post, so I expect to have this halter done and for sale soon :) 

Thanks for reading!

New Blue Halter Finished!

A few days ago I finished this beautiful light blue Hollywood style halter. It features the usual braided headcollar, but instead of a nosechain, the noseband was braided in the same style as the other headcollar parts. The noseband is also decorated with little beads in black and pearl. I've seen this style of noseband done on several modern show halters, and I really liked the effect that it has! It's something a little different than the ususal sharks teeth and coin charms that you often see on Arabian halters :)

 

The sides and the noseband also have a silver braid decoration for extra flair. The ends of the braid are decorated more with silver microbeads for a polished look. The sides of the halter also feature a large silver and blue star-shaped charm, as well as a single light blue tassel on each side.
The halter's throat latch is also in light blue, and it is decorated with two tassels and black & pearl beads. It is adjustable with a black sliding bead.

The set is made to fit the Peter Stone Arabian, but it will size up or down a bit with a sliding silver buckle. It also fits the Breyer PAM model, and should fit models with a similar sized head. This set also comes with a simple lead rope, that attaches to the halter's chain with a small hook.

This halter will be for sale soon on MH$P. I have another one in the works - a black one with red, blue and silver details - which will be for sale too once I finish it.

Thanks for looking and have a nice day everyone :)

Presentation set progress

Yesterday I worked on a new presentation set in black and white. It has a nice zigzag pattern and it's three-tiered! The set features red, yellow and turqoise details, and will likely be for sale once I finish it.

After this first photo it occured to me that photographing a black and white set against a black background was not a great idea...hehe

The model showing the tack is a Peter Stone Arabian that came in the mail a week ago. He's so pretty!

The tassels need some taming still, but after going over them with a damp (clean) toothbrush, they sit much nicer already.

The collar is fastened behind the horse's neck with two longer ties that feature some special tassels. On each side, there are two ropes that drape down for a more dramatic effect. All ropes were twisted, not braided for a more authentic look.

I'm off sculpting the cowries that go on this collar, and making a matching halter of course! :)

New supplies!

I can really enjoy making a trip to the hobby store! So that's what I did yesterday. I bought lots of new beads in different colours.

Look at the silver ones - so pretty!

I also got some jump rings in silver and gold,

As well as some special shimmering thread to tie tassels with.

And lastly I ordered some epoxy sculpt clay to start making cowrie medallions and shells. I can finally finish some projects when that arrives!

I think the first few pieces of tack will be for sale on MH$P soon, so check back sometime next week :)

Microbeads everywhere!

Yesterday, I made a good start on a new traditional scale royal blue halter. And I thought it would be a good idea to try out those microbeads I was talking about earlier.

Headstall base

My desk ended up completely covered in...microbeads... I expected them to stick to the tassels after gluing them on, but of course they didn't. So after hours of putting glue and microbeads on top of eachother, I was ready to give up - until I saw bottle of clear nailpolish standing on the corner of my desk.

It then dawned on me that I could put a layer of polish over the beads, so they would stay put on the tassel!

The result after putting polish on - THEY STICK!! So I quickly put microbeads on the entire batch of tassels I had laying around.

All set to put on the halter base.

All that's left to do now is put a nosechain on it, and make some decorations like cowrie shells and medallions! I have to order some new epoxy stuff for that though...

Presentation Set Coming Along

This evening I worked some more on the red presentation set I was making the tassels for in my last post. The base for the collar is now complete!

Collar base in progress

I also added some tassels at the end of the collar ties. They were inspired by the tassels I saw on another costume once. They didn't turn out perfect the first few times, but in the end I got the hang of it.

Extra tassels for the collar ties

After a few hours, the collar was ready to get "tasseled up"...

It looks pretty nice on my PAM model so far! All I got to do now is make about 20 more tassels, and sculpt some cowrie shell medallions to decorate the rest of the collar.

Tassel's worth the hassle

Today I started on a new red presentation set to fit a Breyer PAM model. It will be native style with lots of little details and tassels. Now, I don't really enjoy making tassels - they take a long time and you're left with a very messy desk, and binding the tassel together properly is tricky (you don't want them to fall apart after all those hours of making them). 

So today I picked up some metal beads from the store, that have a slightly bigger hole than normal glass beads.

Left: metal bead. Right: glass bead

As a result, I could just use beads to keep the tassels in place instead of thread. I secured the beads in place with a dab of glue, so they won't slide off easily.

All that's left is to decorate the tassels with more beads (glass ones this time), and tada!

Just about 30 more of them to make...

I also picked up some microbeads from the store. They will come in handy when I'm making the cowrie shell medallions, and I'm also eager to experiment decorating tassels with them.

The royal blue and teal coloured ones are my favourites

 Tomorrow I hope to get some more work done on the presentation set, and I will also start a stablemate scale one soon!

First blog post

Hello all, welcome to my new blog about Arabian model horse tack! I am definitely a newbie at blogging *and* making Arab tack, so please bear with me as I get this blog organised into something worth reading. 

I have made several Arabian halters in the past (mostly native style), including these two:

I think this was my very first attempt at cowrie shells. Not bad for a first try (I think)... 

And this one I made about two years ago

I'm sure there were more, but unfortunately I can't find any pictures of them. Since the two halters above I hadn't made any new ones, until last week. I started on my first stablemate sized native presentation set! It got me inspired to make more traditional ones as well. 

I thought it would be fun to see my work progress, hence the blog :)

This will be a learning experience for me, but I do hope to start selling halters in the future (as soon as I feel confident they are show worthy). 

Let's see what this blog will become in the end :)