First Sunday of Advent

I love Christmas and have always done, but just as last year, I'm not home and I've once again decided that I will not decorate the room I'm living in but I can at least get some Christmas feel by doing some Christmas-y posts :)

Today is the first Sunday of Advent and we light the first candle.

I'll also give you one, little less traditional, Christmas song which have been a favourite of mine for several years now :)

The story behind the model

Today's post will give you a closer introduction to one of my favourite models in my collection.

Let me introduce Athame:

Athame is an Animal Artistry Sabiha resin painted by Animal Artistry. I've mentioned her in some blog posts every now and then but here is her story.

I first laid eyes on the model back in early 2005 I believe. I saw a beautifully painted liver chestnut Sabiha at a fellow model horse collectors website and fell in love. The only problem for me was that it was a stallion. I really thought that Sabiha would make a wonderful arabian mare and what I didn't know by then was that I had seen one of the few stallion versions of the mold.

I did some more research and found the Animal Artistry website and from there I found out that Sabiha was produced as a mare and that she was still available. I decided then and there that I wanted her. I had found a beautiful example of a bay Sabiha in the Animal Artistry gallery and knew immediately that that's what I wanted (I'm normally not a huge fan of bay horses so when I fall for a bay horse I consider it very special).

I started to save all the money I got. I didn't have any particular income (except for a monthly allowance from my parents) which meant that it would take ALOT of time to save up for her. I did my best and tried to do extra chores and help out as much as possible to try and earn a few extra bucks. I did my best to stay away from any temptations (aka other models I would love to own) and it worked out quite well until I in 2006 found a Sucesion and Le Fire set that I'd been looking for for quite some time (Breyers were quite hard to come by in Sweden back then) and they had been recently retired so I just couldn't pass them up. 

That purchase put my savings back a bit but I tried really, really hard and managed to save up enough money to buy here by fall 2006, which means that I saved well over a year to be able to get her. I got in touch with Donna of Animal Artistry, and she was a delight to work with. This was my first model horse buy outside of Sweden (and also my first purchase from someone other than a retailer) so I was unsure on pretty much anything regarding model horse purchases but Donna was very nice and understanding so the whole process went very smoothly.

My Sabiha resin arrived at December 22, 2006 and I couldn't be more happy with her. She was carefully packed and I unpacked her slowly and in awe of her beauty. She looked even better than I would've ever thought she would. I was so happy and probably walked on clouds for days.

 

At the time I was a big fan of the tv-series Charmed and that's were I got her name from. An Athame is ceremonial dagger with a double-edged blade. It's frequently used and mentioned in some episodes of the series and I always thought that the name sounded cool and for some reason I always imagined it on an arabian mare so when I got my Sabiha the name was just right.

Athame has been with me for several years now and she's been on liveshows and entered in photoshows several times. She's never won any of the bigger titles on liveshows (I think that her best results have been a few seconds and maybe even one or two firsts in her classes) but she's been excelling in photoshows with everything from first places to champion titles and Best In Show Reserve titles. I even think she actually managed to be Best In Show in one photoshow.

Unfortunately in 2012, she was in an accident when we were unpacking my car at a liveshow. The box she was in fell out of hands and she suffered a broken tail, her croup shattered at the base of her tail and both her ears was broken, of which one was completely shattered. I was devastated and had to leave her with the showholder who promised to do her best to restore her. Unfortunately it wasn't possible to fix her and keep her as she was so at the next show I went to she had gotten me an almost exact replica of my Athame, the only thing different is that the "new" Athame is a slightly darker shade but it doesn't matter, I still love her and she is just as gorgeous as ever.

So that's the story of my first resin and holy grail and to this day, one of my absolute favourite models of my collection.

Does any of your models have a special story?

Please share, I'd love to here about it!

10 years of collecting

I just realised that the middle of July marked my 10 year anniversary of collecting models. Next fall will mark my 10 year anniversary as an active model horse hobby member (showing, pedigree assigning, painting and buying models from other collectors instead of just retailers). But like I said, that is for next year.

This year it's my 10th year of collecting! Yay :)

My collection started out small, and it all began with a Schleich Fjordhorse Gelding. My Schleich collection grew and after a while Breyers followed. My collection grew to big to store on my desk or other shelf so I got a bookshelf for my models, It wasn't very big and not the most stable one either but it worked.

I knitted blankets and leg protection for all of my collection and my mother crocheted halters for them in the same colour as their blankets and leg protection. That was mostly to keep them protected and to keep the dust away.

Soon my collection outgrew my bookshelf and I wanted a cabinet with glass doors to keep them in. I got one very cheap and moved my collection into it.

Top shelves

Middle shelves

Lower shelves

That was good enough for a while but later on I had to keep models in the closed half cabinet as well and my Schleich models had to move into my CD shelf.

CD shelf, glass door cabinet and closed half cabinet

A better picture showing the CD shelf and the glass cabinet

I felt like my cabinets started to be a bit too full after a while and wanted to have another glass cabinet. When I was buying furniture for my apartment where I was going to study I got a great deal on some much needed bookshelves (for the apartment) and a glass cabinet, much like the one I already had. I couldn't turn that down so my collection moved into another glass cabinet and this is what it looks like today:

My newest models, the Justin Tyme resin, Elsa resin and Tivoli resin are still not in there but I hope that I will have time to make room for them when I'm home for Christmas.

10 years have made quite a difference in the collection. From only collecting Schleich to move on to OF Breyers and now getting more and more into resins :)

9 Lives

My dear little cat must have 9 lives. 

Thankfully he's found his way home again (after being missing for 4-5 days) and I am so relieved to hear that.

He's lost quite a bit of weight so he's probably been locked in somewhere. Anyway we are all glad to have him home again and we won't let him out for a few days so that we can be sure that he is okay.

Missing, again

Here we are, once again Svante is missing. And the worst part of it all is that I'm not home to look for him. I was lucky enough to find him. Unfortunately I don't think we will have the same luck twice. I'm afraid that something bad has happened and that he won't come back this time...

It's hard to be 400 miles away and powerless when your dear animals are missing. I can't really stand the thought of him not being there when I get home for Christmas.

My trusty little, sweet cat who even trusted me enough to help him swim in our pool without even being scared.

Even though a little bit skeptic at first when we let him outside he adapted very well and soon grew to like the outdoors. 

He got more and more comfortable and hes not afraid of any of the dogs. He loves to play with them and they like him too.

I hate being helpless and even though I know that my family do what they can to find him it doesn't feel good not to be able to go out and try to find him myself.

Once again I'll have to pray for his safe return and hope that it's enough to bring him home.

I'm sure even Liten wants his friend back!

I'm still here!

I want to apologize for the radio silence that has been on my blog for some time now. I've been extremely busy in school and recently my computer decided to strike. Fortunately the computer issue is now resolved (at least until it decides to strike again, because I'm certain it will...)

Unfortunately there haven't been much progress on the modelhorse front lately. The weather has been lousy so I haven't been able to prime any models and I haven't painted anything in a while because the little free time I've had I have tried to spend with my friends, boyfriend and family (and most of them live more than 400 miles away) which means that I haven't had a whole lot of time to do anything hobby related. Being a full-time student also means that money is tight so I haven't bought any new models lately and I haven't been able to attend any liveshows

So from a hobby point of view my life has been very slow and non-progressive for quite some time now (the rest of my life sure hasn't!).

I do have some posts planed for the near future and I hope to get back into things soon as I miss it dearly.

I hope I still have some readers and hopefully I will have something worth reading soon! :)

And because I don't want this post to be all text and boring, I'll give you a little picture :)

Imperia and Laura
An old picture of my Breyer Sidesaddle Set