Blogidays Day Five: The Other Cool People

Continuing down memory lane/slow news day... 

If some of the pictures seem random, that's because they are. Nothing got done in the studio today and I don't really have any relevant pictures to go with some parts of this post, so enjoy some random pictures from the past two years or so, just purged from my ancient phone.  

Over on the right side of the blog you've probably noticed a little list of links titled "Other Cool People." Those aren't just interesting blogs- each link has earned its way there and has little anecdotes behind it. So let's spread some love, shall we?

Ebb & Flow Studios

Anna. I feel like I talk about Anna almost every single blog post, but she's worth it. Hands-down my favorite human, partner in crime, and talented tackmaker to boot. I could wax on about her forever, but I'm going to leave it at that because I'm sure I'll be doing plenty more loving on her in the future.

Braymere Custom Saddlery

I know I'm not alone when I say that Jennifer Buxton is the one who inspired me to start blogging in the first place. I can't even remember how I first stumbled upon her blog some five years ago, but as soon as I did I was struck by how clean, visually appealing and genuinely interesting her posts are. A visit to Braymere is as much a part of my daily routine as mealtimes are, and I'm never disappointed.

The first full mini tack set I ever sent out into the world,
with some A+ phone photography.

After reading the blog for about a year, I figured it was high time to get myself some materials and start making tack. With some vinyl found at JoAnn's and a bottle of superglue, I pieced together a Classic scale English saddle, complete with paper clip stirrups. My heart is not broken over the fact that this monstrosity has somehow disappeared since...

Beyond her essential Tack Tips, I don't think there are many performance documentation sheets I've ever made without at least one of her gorgeous pictures. Her blog has been an invaluable resource to me as a performance shower because she makes it easy to bridge the gap between model horses and live ones.

The start of a time-sucking project earlier this week...

Her Tack and Performance Reference Indexes are bookmarked on my laptop- I know I can count on her clear, high-quality pictures to be a better tack reference than digging through Google Images.

On the blogging front, as soon as Jennifer added this blog to her sideroll, my traffic just about doubled, and I know a lot of people stay updated on what's going on here by monitoring my blog's icon on Braymere. I love being interconnected like this, and am still honored that I'm mentioned in the company of such wonderful other blogs!

Dreamflite Design

While Braymere inspired me to try tack, it was Anna Kirby's work that made me think that mini scales might be fun. Anna (Yager) and I fangirled over her blog and her website, at first in the "Who would ever want to make tack that small? That's insane!" kind of way, then slowly into the "I wonder if we could do that?" kind of way.

One of Leah Koerper's amazing entries at Sweet Onion Live earlier this year.

At the time, the only other mini tackmaker we were really aware of was Becky Yeager, who had some really amazing stuff out there too. Dreamflite was really the push in the right direction we needed. We took it as a very serious sign from the universe that if you combined these two artist's names, you could come up with Anna Yeager- which is one letter away from a perfect match. Clearly this was supposed to happen.

One of my favorite carriage horses working the downtown Seattle route.

By the time I'd decided to try making Stablemate tack, I'd read the entirety of her blog and spent hours just staring at the work she had posted on her website. Seeing the tack in this scale, and reading about how she did it, made it seem so easy. As yesterday's post attested, a lot of the methods I use to this day are inspired by her.

Shoestring Stable

I discovered Leah Koerper's blog shortly after my mini tack adventure began, and I quickly became very attached. While Anna Kirby's tack seemed almost unreal, Leah's tack and customs were presented in a way that felt a lot more relatable to me. Her entire Tips and Tricks tag is a thing of beauty.

The rider! The horse! Gimme!

Shoestring is another blog that really inspired me to get things done, because Leah just makes customizing look so easy! I still go back through her pastelling posts to get myself pumped when I have a horse to color. 

Leah is a fellow Region 1-er, and I briefly ran into her at Sweet Onion Live earlier this year. While I was a bit too scatter-brained, busy, and generally shy to really have a solid conversation with her, I did get a chance to sneak a few peeks at her absolutely amazing mini entries. I'm so jealous of her riders!

Five Paws Studio

I've never met or talked to Kristian, but hers is another blog that I've found myself becoming attached to. We have similar interests (inside and outside the hobby), so a new Five Paws post is always fun for me. Her current zombie horse is especially reminiscent for me of my past customizing adventures...

Kristian also took notice of this blog and linked to it on Five Paws before anyone else seemed too interested. The traffic she directed my way was huge for me- it felt like actual people were really reading my stuff!

Desktop Stables

There's something about making tiny versions of normal-sized things that's just so delightful, and I find a lot of that delight through Desktop Stables. Nichelle's blog is always visually amazing (I love how her header changes with the seasons!), and her miniatures are to die for. She recently made a bunch of Traditional scale western saddle pads that just absolutely knocked my socks off. 

Leah's jaw-dropping micro mini flat racing entry- how, Leah???

CK Tiny Tack

Christina Brown is quite possibly proof of magic. That, or she has a shrink ray that she's hogging all to herself, because I really struggle to picture any of her tack as starting out as just leather and materials. Her tack is a huge inspiration to me, and a standard that I hope I'll one day achieve!

My new reindeer slippers currently snuggling my feet.

And those are my Cool People! There are a few people I know I'm leaving off, but these are the people I feel most connected to or inspired by. 

I guess the last person I need to mention is collectively all of you, the people who read this here blog- all of your comments and even your views make me feel like I'm going in the right direction! Thank you so much to the commenters and silent readers alike. I know you're out there, and I appreciate you.

Back to real-time tack tomorrow, I promise! Another week of Blogidays to come- the question still stands, anything you'd really like to see? Tutorials? Performance thoughts? I promise we're done with memory lane. For now. :)