Thankful Thursday + Dash of Motivation

I'm always on the lookout for different pictures in my travels across the vast sea of the Internet.  A few things I'm constantly looking for: horse and tack reference pictures, funny pictures - mostly to share with Jeff, and motivational pictures - for me and to share with you in my Motivation Monday posts.  Once in a while, I come across a motivational picture so good that it's hard to wait for Monday to share it.

This is one of those pictures, I found it today:

I thought those were great motivational words and in thinking of a way I could share it today, I thought: Well, what is today...  Thursday.  Thankful Thursday?  Seems like an odd thing to share this picture in a Thankful post, but stay with me...

I've been thinking a lot about the goals I had set for this year - and how a lot of them haven't happened.  Last week I actually decided to get a jump on goal setting for 2016 and I started drafting a blog post for that list of goals (coming soon).  In some ways I do feel like I'm in the same place that I was last year at this time, but that's really silly, isn't it?  In the past year we've moved halfway around the world, to Japan.  So obviously I'm far from the same physical place that I was in a year ago.  However, it's so much more than that.  I've already experienced so many wonderful, beautiful, and amazing things in our short time here.

From a hobby standpoint, in the past year, though the Stagecoach hasn't been touched much at all, nor has my very first Rio Rondo saddle, I've acquired a lot of really awesome hobby materials, like How-To books that I've had my eye on for a long time.  I had a fantastic Day in the Studio with Candace Liddy back in March that took away a lot of the fears of the unknown that I'd had about a lot of creative processes.  I met one of my hobby/tack making heroes and had a great day with her.  I have also "met" another of my hobby/tack making heroes via e-mail and I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversations!

I could go on, but really, I do feel so blessed, so thankful.  I think instead of focusing on what hasn't happened, what I haven't gotten done, I need to continue to be happy about all of the wonderful things that have happened!

That being said, I am still going to keep the words of the picture in mind as the next year begins to unfold - there is still a LOT I plan to do!  Much of it is scary for me, but I've got to get started, before another year goes by.  ;)

So Much Sea Glass

A side project over the last few days has been to work on cleaning up the sea glass I've found on all of the trips to the beach.  I've been rinsing them off, then soaking them in bleach water.  Finally, another rinse, and laying them out to dry.  It's been fun and boy do I have a lot of neat pieces and colors.

Batch one - including a piece of china in the lower left, also found on the beach:

Batch two:

Batches three and four, rinsed and laid out to dry at the same time:

I've still got at least two or three batches left to clean up.  Then I plan to sort through all of it.  So far I haven't had a concrete plan for what to do with it, but I'm getting some ideas.  So I think the pieces that I don't want for my projects I'll be giving away, or possibly selling if they are very nice, but not quite what I'm looking for.

There are some large chunks that I'll have no use for, but I did gave one of them to a friend yesterday for her fish tank, along with a handful of a type of rock she's collecting that I had some of in my beach loot stash.  The sea glass piece was one she'd seen on our last beach trip a few days ago, but decided not to pick up.  Then she said she wished she had.  She was happy to hear that I had it, I guess me picking up all of it, whether I'm sure I'll use it or not, is okay.  (ha!)


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The title of this post is inspired by a Kid Snippets clip.  If you haven't heard of them, you should go check out some of their videos.  The premise of their videos is this: "If movies were written by our children".  This is the first video of theirs that Jeff and I had seen, a few years ago.  

Kid Snippets: "Salesman"

We use quotes and partial quotes from it, and some of their other videos, fairly often.  In the case of this blog post, "Did you see so much money??"  Replace money with, anything...  Another favorite from that episode is: "I'll have it."

A couple of our other favorites:

"Cooking Show"
(favorite quotes: "AAAAND THE MILK!!" or "Yeah, and the ice cream.")

"Math Class"
(favorite quotes: "I. Don't. Know."  or "Ten!")

Costume - Second Session

A few days ago I made some tiny baby steps towards making my first Arabian costume.  Today I did a bit more work.

In trying to decide exactly where to cut the patterned fabric that I want to use, I decided that I wanted a "frame" to use, versus a solid pattern piece.  So I drew two more pattern pieces on card stock and then cut the inside out of them, leaving a frame around the space.

For a comparison, here's the solid pattern piece on the fabric...

... and here's the frame.  I like this WAY better for deciding what I want to cut out.

Up above is the long piece that drapes over the horse's back and down below is the rear panel that sits over their rump.

I'm having a bit of trouble deciding on the whole color scheme.  My plan all along was to do two shades of pink, and then have white as the third color.  Now I'm leaning towards the trio of brown, pink, and white - or brown, and the two shades of pink.  It's hard to see in these pictures, but the scalloped design around the rose pattern is brown in color.  It's very subtle, but I like the idea of using brown in the costume, versus running the risk of looking like someone poured Pepto-Bismol over the horse (too much pink?).  There are hints of green in the fabric too, but I though that might be tricky to pull off, so I've decided (I think) that brown and pink will be in there, but for the third color... another pink... or white...?  I'm not sure yet.

Here are some of the floss and ribbon colors that I was considering today:

After studying the fabric through my frame pieces - and studying the book - I changed my mind on the style of costume.  Instead of the type with a long panel over the horse's back, I think this fabric would work better with the style of a rear panel and small side panels.

So, I repeated the pattern piece and frame cutting to get the frames for that style.

I might still shift the rear panel around some (the bigger one on the bottom), but I like how the smaller side panel looks; the rose design fits in there about perfectly.

Here's my model with some scrap fabric pieces haphazardly stuck on to try and eyeball the panel sizes.

And that's where I left it for this session.

Next time I think I'll plan on actually cutting out some of the rose fabric and try to nail down the colors of floss and ribbon that I'll be using.

Good Mail Day

Jeff came home from work and his nightly stop at the post office with this:

I couldn't wait - I've already read through the digital edition - so I knew what to expect, but I'm still very happy to have the actual issue in hand.  It's much bigger than I had thought it would be and I love that it was sent in an envelope.  That way it didn't get all beat up - particularly on its long journey here to Japan!

The article I'm most happy to have, and look over again and again, is this one:

Despite the fact that the vast majority of custom horses I've done have been minis - and despite the fact I've done a bunch of haired customs - it never occurred to me to try and use embroidery floss for hairing!  I will certainly be trying this technique in the future.

I'm also eager to re-read the other articles, and interviews, and the ads, and, and...  :D

Beach Treasure Found

I had fun a the beach and did find a bunch more sea glass and rocks.

This little piece is now the prize in my sea glass collection:

My first cobalt blue piece!  (my favorite color)

We saw a lot of really neat things along the beach, including this tiny stream of runoff that was building some amazing sand structures.

Jeff and I agreed we could have sat and watched this for hours.  It was fascinating to see water erode and relocate sand, in miniature.

Today I'll be recovering from the beach walk; it's always quite a workout.  I may go over to a friend's house to watch movies and do some crafts.  I also need to start getting my sea glass and rock hoard-- er, "collection" cleaned up.  :)

Beach Day

Today we are off to the beach with some friends.  It's the same beach where I've been finding all of the sea glass.  This will be Jeff's first time there, where I usually go with a couple of friends.  Their husbands are joining us too.  It should be a fun day and maybe I'll find a more treasure!  ;)

Costume - The Very Beginning

Yesterday, Tealight "helped" me cut up some scrap fabric.

Today, I put some of the fabric to use, taking my first tentative steps into the world of Arabian costume making.

First up was transferring part of a pattern onto the scrap fabric.  I then stuck it to a cutting mat, using double-sided tape.  For cutting I decided to try the little rotary cutter I'd bought at the 100 yen store.

Hmmm, it turns out the cheap rotary cutter may be cheap. This may actually be my fault, as I think I stopped cutting at the corners instead of going past them like I probably should have.

No matter, a bit of trimming with scissors and the pieces were free.

This is where I stopped for now.  I've got to do some more adulting (boo!) before we go over to a friend's house for the evening.  Not much to see here, but it's a start.

I wasn't sure which mold to use for my first full costume, but I figured a PAM is a nice place to begin.

Remember this post, folks!  When I am making awesome costumes (years from now) this is where it will have started!  ;)