More Surprises!

We have two more horsey surprises for everyone! Now I know you may be asking: "But... why?" Well, long story short, Breyer opened up a special section on their website for those who were BreyerFest three-day ticket holders from this year. In this section was an absolute goldmine of special runs from not only this year but previous years.

Seeing as we had already come home with one of almost every special run (minus the Pegasus), I scanned the list for things that I didn't figure anybody in our area would already have. I had to do a lot of thinking about that, though. Back before we started running more complex shows and taking in models to sell, my mom and I were still attending BreyerFest every year. In those days, we were only able to bring models home for ourselves, and sometimes we didn't even get every model we wanted. (No extra tickets, no extra models.)

I took this as an opportunity to see if I could snag some models from 2014 and earlier, and guess what?

I did.

So there you have it. A "Dances with Wolves" from 2010 and a "Champagne Toast" from 2014, but Dances with Wolves will not be for sale. Let me offer a little bit of explanation.

BreyerFest 2010 was my first BreyerFest. I was able to come home with every single model except for two- Beethoven and Dances with Wolves. As a kid who was seriously into collecting and showing my models, I really, REALLY wanted a porcelain piece. But also, as a kid, I did not have the money to afford a $155 porcelain horse- no matter how pretty she was an how much I loved her. My mother told me "Absolutely not. You're not getting that horse. She's too breakable and too expensive." And though miffed, I thought it was a good enough argument.

However, now that I am a legal adult with a job and money of my own, spending money on a horse that was discounted from $155 to something more affordable to me was a no-brainer. So she's mine now, after six years of searching and hoping that I would actually find her at some room sale of on eBay.

Don't give up on your dreams, kids. Eventually, you WILL end up with that expensive grail your parents originally said "no" to.

I hope you enjoyed today's motivational blog. Stick around- I've been making some halters, and I might just to a little tutorial on them.

~Emma

Introducing...

I did promise pictures of the two newbies, so here I am- delivering! I have way more photos of Ricochet than I do of the DAH Andy, but that's because I'm a super-protective dummy (and it started raining during his shoot yesterday).

Ricochet's new name is "IBS Rhodochrosite" or "Rhody". Naming him after a pink and white banded gemstone seemed pretty fitting to me.

It's not often that I am entirely happy with a paint job from Breyer on these little guys, but they have certainly kicked it up a notch with this one. There's not a hint of overspray on him whatsoever- not even around his eyes. He's got a slight pearlescent sheen to him, but it's not so overpowering that it makes the colors pop completely, keeping that soft, cotton candy pink.

He's a little masterpiece in my opinion, and I love him. Hopefully he'll do well at future shows.

Next up is my new drool-worthy Stone whose arrival I've been waiting on since I ordered him in April. There's a bit of a funny story behind why he took so long to come to me, and I might as well tell it.

When you do a DAH (Design A Horse) through Stone, you have lots of bodies and colors to choose from. They want you to be as specific as possible during designing so that the artists can easily get horses done in batches as the orders come in. For those of you who don't know the website, it's a lot of drop-down menus that make things super simple to get the horse you want.

So I ordered my boy in "White Pearl", which is basically Stone's "Cremello" color, but with a pearlescent finish. I waited about two months for my horse to ship, and he came in June, as expected. I had ordered him when I did in hopes that I would get him for Stone Age Live, and I did, but... he wasn't the right color.

Whoops!

There had been a little mistake at the factory, with someone mistaking his "White Pearl" color for just plain "White". He was gorgeous, yes, but not what I was after. A few messages to their customer service, though, and he was sent back for "repairs".

A couple days ago, I caught this picture of him in progress in their Sneak Peek Thursday post.

He's the windswept one in the middle, but I'm loving the white color on all three of those. (Couldn't Stone have shipped me all of them?)

So, yes, the same horse came back to me, just in a different color. And, boy, does he look good.

Meet "IBS Careless Whisper". Yes, like the song, of course! I have a lot of plans for this guy, including getting him a set of custom-made parade tack and a new show halter. Definitely look for some performance scenes with him in the future.

He's about as flawless as flawless gets, which is why I love Stone's quality; I haven't gotten a bad horse from them yet. His pink shading is in all the right places, his eyes are beautifully done to give him a touch of attitude, and the slight pearl tone does wonders for this mold.

I'm so excited to get these two in the show ring, but I'll have to wait until November, probably. I won't be showing at our next show in the Palooza circuit- I'll be judging! All of the horses we brought home from BreyerFest and Equilocity will be there, however- plus these two and the two surprises coming (maybe) next week.

Look for that unboxing video when they arrive, but I should be able to do a couple more posts before then. I'm planning on making a few stock halters soon. Maybe a little something on that?

~Emma

Surprise!

I'm finally able to put videos together now that I have a decent program to do so (thank you for the new computer, NMU), so when I got a couple packages today, I figured that I could do a bit of an unboxing video for everyone.

Ignore the terrible lighting and the camera not focusing. I'm still working out the kinks of using this camera for videos.

So, there you have it!

Two new horses that I'll be bringing to our show in October, and a surprise for all of you on the way. Pictures of these two newbies are coming soon. Hopefully none of you were extremely scarred for life seeing my face, either. If that's the case, maybe I'll do some other vlog-type deals and post them here for all of you.

Stay tuned!

~Emma

Marquette County Fair: Emma's (Belated) Overview

Fair festivities were in full swing last week besides the buckets upon buckets of rain we received Thursday through Saturday. The rain only seemed to put a damper on the carnival rides and postponed a few of the activities in the horse arena, but it didn't seem to have any affect on attendence! Truth be told, I think the rain helped draw everyone to the Expo Building, which meant that our first fair outing was a complete success.

Also, my apologies for the blog being late. There was lots going on this week with the fair open from 10 am to 10 pm every day, checking on the real ponies, comic books arriving, and my boyfriend leaving for college. Needless to say it's been just a little bit hectic, but hopefully I can make up for that with plenty of pics of PPS from the week.

Painting supplies were always at the ready.

Before the painting became too hectic, my mom and I decided to each paint a pony. (Mine is the little abstract Appy pony up top.) 

Once things picked up on Thursday night, our booth was completely crammed! However, that's something you can quote my mother on and not me-- I left approximately half an hour before the rush started in order to get to Alec's play on time. I kept getting texts throughout the night relaying to me which horses were selling and how many kids were at the tables. Sounds like it was quite the interesting experience. Sorry I wasn't there, mom!

What pretty ponies!

M&T members Garrett and Morgan painting some Halloween-themed ponies.

My dad even got in on the action with his one job being the resident "pony dryer".

Aren't those ponies just the coolest? We had some more throughout the weekend, but these pictures were just from Thursday! 

But there was a bit more fun around our booth than just painting ponies. Across from us was the "Children's Entertainment"- Cirque Amongus with Sem, Teresa, and Nash and The Magic of Jim Mitchell. 

Trying out the tightrope!

My 4H kids suckered me into going for a ride on the six-person party bike... in the rain.

Jim and his Macaw, Toby, were an absolute hit!

Three shows a day for four days makes a total of twelve shows over the week, but they never got old. Both acts managed to change it up for everybody, and Jim's hypnosis shows were absolutely hilarious to take in! It was awesome to hang out with them all week; I'm really hoping that they come back next year. 

As the week kept progressing, the number of horses sold and ponies painted just kept increasing. We had to go home every night and pack at least four boxes of horses to bring back so we could restock for the next day. There was something different every day at our booth.

As of now, I can safely say that a good portion of the horses pictured found good homes at the fair!

M&T members hung around for a little tutorial on how to do that "abstract Appaloosa" coloring.

On one of our slow mornings, I maybe painted another horse... maybe.

Thanks to everyone who attended for making this past week a really positive one for Paint Pony Studios! We can't wait for next year's fair!

~Emma

Manes & Tails at the Marquette County Fair

We're all set up and rolling for our first day at the Marquette County Fair. We'll be taking pictures of our booth and everyone painting, the drawing winners, and hopefully some other fair entertainment from today until Sunday, but I wanted to share with you all our Manes & Tails 4H board.

We currently have nine members, and everybody brings something real special to the table. This year for the fair, we were given one of the boards in the horse barn to showcase our members and what exactly it is that we do as a club.

We've included "Did you know?" facts about Breyer and Peter Stone horses alike, including little tidbits about NAMHSA, BreyerFest, and the shows we attend.

Make sure to pop by the horse barn if you're at the fair and see everything we've done as a club.

One year under our belts, everyone, and still going strong!

~Emma

It's fair week, everyone!

Paint Pony Studios is proud to be a vendor at this year's Marquette County Fair for the week. We will be in the Exhibitor Building from Thursday to Sunday with special fair pricing on all of our horses. Not to mention, we are offering kids to come and paint a pony for $5.00.

Anyone who comes and paints a pony will have the chance to enter our Daily Drawing to win a model! We are offering four prizes for each of the four days, and kids do not have to be present to win. Just write your name and phone number on the ticket we give you and drop it in the bucket. If you're not around when we call you after the drawing at 9:00 pm, we'll give you a ring for your horse!

Today, though, we just took some time to set up, get some items marked down, and figure out how best to use our booth space.

Getting the shelves up!

We also have our own Breyer banner.

Take a look at our new PPS banner! The logo I drew up looks pretty good in print, huh?

Aren't we jut super official?

Once everything was set up, we started unloading horses. We still have more in storage (mostly duplicates), but there's surely something for everyone. And if you don't see something you want, ask us! We might just not have the room to display it.

That's all the pictures I have for now, but I will definitely have my camera with me on-site for picture taking reasons. Maybe I'll even get a chance to head down to the arena and share with you all some REAL horse fun over the weekend.

See you all at the fair!

~Emma

(Kinda Sorta) Bedridden

I'm so sorry about the lack of blog posts, everyone, but it's been a bit of a busy week for me. My airbrush petered out, so I have a commission on hold until my new one comes, college starts on the 22nd of August, fair week is almost upon us, AND....... I just had my wisdom teeth out.

Yep. That's right.
All four of them.

So I've been a bit of a puffy mess that can't really eat or get up off the couch for too long, and you'd think that would make it easy to get blog posts done, but really... No. No, it is not.

For those who show with us on the Palooza circuit, I've actually spent the last couple days reworking the class list and registration papers to make things run a little smoother for us. When it all gets released, hopefully all the questions you guys have had for me will be cleared up.

In the meantime, I have some better pictures of the horses I came home with from Equilocity. The only one missing is "Rabbit" because he's still packed up somewhere and I don't have the drive to dig him out at the moment.

Enjoy :)

"Ozy-MANE-dias" - named after a character from Watchmen

"Wendy Darling"

"Into Imagination" - aka Figment
(Yes, like the little purple dragon.)

"Ginger Decision" - aka "Snap"
(...so 'snap decision'. We're good with names.)

When I'm feeling better and my new airbrush gets here, I should be down in the studio a little more. I can't wait to show you guys what I'm working on.

~Emma