Celebrate the Family

         I'll admit that I don't much like winter.  We don't get snow...and I don't really like snow unless it covers everything.  Sunshine brings true happiness.  Finding happiness in snow is just to cover up the fact you can't be happy without the sun. 

          I've collected Breyer models for several years.  I stumbled across my first models in Walmart when I was in fifth grade and was so ecstatic to find that these plastic models actually looked like horses.  Forget Grand Champions or those velvet fuzzy things- and you didn't find me playing with glitter pastel barbie horses.  NO WAY!  Honestly, those pets from My Littlest Pet Shop give me creeps.  So as I gradually gathered up a herd, I was given a nice wooden stable to house them in.  It took up most of the patio room for a good two years.  I tried my best to accessorize it and make it look like one of those model train sets in convention centers and town halls.  I was only 12 years old then. 

         I was set on edge whenever guests came because they often didn't control their children.  First I'd tried shutting them all in their stalls...but when the toddlers figured out that they could open the little doors and find horses...I began to gather my horses up in my arms and move them to my bedroom and lock the door.  On one occasion, my little brother let our cousins in there...and I walk in...to find them all smashing the horses together...and dropping them on each other...and making them fight!  (wail)  And the tail was broken off of one!  I didn't kill my little brother. 

       I tried super-glue...and krazy-glue...and guerrilla glue...nothing would bond to the plastic.  Years went by.  The model sat broken on display in my bedroom.  I contemplated using goat hair (mohair) by drilling or melting a hole in the plastic where the tail belongs and gluing the hair in.  

       Because all the other glues I had attempted the paint was eaten off the model's rump, I decided to make this one a custom horse.  Breyer models may be heated and reshaped, cut on, and repainted.  Being the daredevil artist that I am, I fearlessly subjected my be-loved model to all forms of torture.  I submerged it in boiling water and adjusted the neck and head and ear so that the horse was making a right turn, right ear laid back.  Then I took my hot knife and sculpted the nostrils, ears, eyes, and mouth (making it open mouth)  And repaired the tail!  It wont be breaking again! 

       Next I will paint it and seal it, enjoy it, and then perhaps, sell it.  Here is a look at what it looked like before it was broken, and what it looks like now.  (Please note that these are pictures of someone elses' model.  Mine looked very much the same)

I sanded the entire horse so that my paint would bond with the plastic better. 

  My sisters are always shocked whenever I destroy something.  That makes the challenge even more fun.  I destroy to make better.  I'll miss my appaloosa sport horse, but I wont tolerate any tailless, naked models atop my furniture any longer!

      I'm thinking of making him/her a light palamino or raspberry roan.  Not sure...consider my possiblities!