Costume Creations: Pretty, pretty princess

I should have done this on a Wednesday because it needs no words. I'll only say that it took me longer than you would think to hand make that fucking fabulous princess hat, and it was worth every second.

why my old barn is the best: i posted on our fb page if anyone had
a wig i could use for this photo shoot, and had one in my hands the next day.

that flowing tutu-like skirt was a bitch to sew.

he maybe didn't like this costume quite so much as the others

ears only go up for cookies. lots of cookies.

"give me moar princess cookies!"

that hair though

full princess sparkle

This lady horse shoot didn't come out quite as well as his epic RuPaul dress up, but it still gets crossed off the list. The fact that he's sporting a wig is good enough for me!

Costume Creations: Native American War Horse

I did this "costume" back in the very beginning of April, but I felt like I was kind of inundating the blog with Bobby costumes so I never got around to posting it. It worked it just fine though as Bobby has today off, and now I have the perfect filler post.

I did my research for this one; I didn't want to just paint a bunch of silly symbols on my horse and inevitably insult someone. I bought a six pack of washable paint at Michael's and a package of spongy paint brushes at the dollar store. Both were a big fat fucking fail.

The paint brushes were essentially useless. What little paint that didn't get immediately absorbed by them just got smeared when I tried to apply it to Bobby. I ended up dumping big globs onto a piece of paper and hand painting it on. This was particularly fun when the shavings guy walked in to leave a payment slip and I was crouched in front of my horse with blue paint dripping down my arm.

Don't judge me, shavings guy. Just write it off as Crazy Horse Girl behavior and move along.

I took Bobby up to the outdoor for the photo shoot prepared with a longe whip, knowing full well my horse doesn't really do the at liberty frolic most freed Thoroughbreds participate in. I ran around almost as much as he did, and he still managed to get away with trotting most of the time.

Here's a rundown of what Bobby ended up decked out in to make him the most bad ass war horse around:

Green paint is a symbol of endurance and healing power, and painting the circles around the horse's eyes in green is thought to improve vision.

(i forgot to wash these off for days and kept thinking my horse was bleeding whenever i saw him)

Red paint symbolizes all the beast mode attributes: war, strength, energy, and power. Hand prints on the horse's chest meant your horse is the ultimate bad ass and knocked down an enemy in battle.

Blue paint is for wisdom and confidence (one of those things Bobby is lacking, and I'll let you guys guess which it is...). The lightning arrow--which that obviously is--is a sign of swiftness. Fastest racehorse ever? He needs ALL the lightning arrows!

A left hand print on the horse's right hip is the highest honor. It meant the horse brought its rider back from a dangerous mission.

These are clearly hoof prints painted in black for fucking victory. Every picture I saw had them painted like this so leave my artistic skills alone. Each hoof print is for an animal taken in a raid. Bobby got three because he had three pasture mates.

Did I take them in a raid?

Basically.

White is the color of mourning or peace, meant to represent peace here. Because only his shoulder is interested in being friendly. The rest is ready to fuck shit up. These arrows are for protection. "Please don't go all San Domingo, Medicine Hat Stallion and shoot my horse in the shoulder, you know what I'm saying?

Yellow stands for a few things: death, bravery, and that you're willing to fight to the death. I'm not, my horse is not, but it felt like a good color for our "lightning bolt" (okay, you can make fun of my artistic skills on that one) which adds power and speed.

He also had blue thunder stripes on his front legs which didn't come out in the slightest, and apparently I didn't write down what they meant anyway. More being a boss, no doubt.

So there you go! Your totally random history lesson for the day!

Wordless Wednesday: Bonus Costume

just two bay dinosaurs getting their outfits worked on

"you give us cookies?"

all of the blue fabric we wanted for hair was sold out, so we improvised

"let me help you with that, best friend."

and there they are

thing 1 and thing 2

even matching faces of pure joy!

i won't have friends like these at my new barn. :(

they're both as uninhibited and hungry for cookies as bobby and i are

Costume Creations: Easter Lamb

Sweet baby Jesus, this costume took for-ev-er. It looked so simple when I was browsing pictures online. And it is simple. It just takes for-ev-er to do.

I started with a twin sized fitted bed sheet from Walmart. I didn't really care if it was long enough to cover Bobby's entire body, and it was cheaper than buying a yard or two of real fabric. I ripped the elastic border out except for around his face, and then cut out eye and ear holes so I would know where not to put the cotton once I got to gluing.

the draping stage.

I bought one bag of cotton stuffing, even though I went back and forth a few times if I should get a second while I was there. I finally decided that if I needed more, I could always go back for it. I also picked up a $3 mini hot glue gun and a 30 pack of glue sticks. While Hubby and I were at Michael's a few weeks ago, they had fake flower chains on sale, so I snagged a pretty one of those, too.

before a much needed face fluff trimming

From there, it was just a matter of gluing the cotton down on the sheet. If you're stupid enough to want to do this costume for your own horse, here's a gluing tip: only lay a few stripes of glue down at once before pressing the cotton onto it. That glue dries really quickly, and you'll just have to go over it all over again if you try to do large sections at once.

much better.

The cotton pulled apart really easily while still retaining its volume, so I ended up only using three quarters of the bag. I did, however, have to go back for a second bag of glue sticks. I ended up using about forty over all.

I got as much of the face area done at home as I could, but because of the elastic, it was hard for me to hold it flat and lay the cotton down like I wanted to. I ended up having to finish gluing that part on at the barn while it was on my horse.

I glued the seams together to cover his chest and under his head, and then carefully escorted him outside with my BM along to bribe him to put his ears up.

And also to laugh at him.

We got a good five minutes of him patiently posing before he got a face itch and rubbed it out on his leg. That was the end of any containment of the cotton.

going in for the itch.

the result.

I don't even know how BM and I were still breathing at that point we were laughing so hard. Bobby continued to stand there unperturbed with fluffy pieces of cotton blocking his eyesight until we could get control of ourselves. The struggle was real.

"hai guys. why are you on the ground?"
because we're dying bobby. we're literally dying.

Once we were done, I rolled everything up and was contemplating whether or not to just chuck it, or bring it home, stuff it in my trunk, and chuck it at some point in the future. Fortunately, one of the barn kids walked in and asked what I was going to do with it. She is a girl after my own pink-loving, horses should be in tiaras at all times heart, so I said, "It's all yours, S. Use it well."

She was seriously thrilled, so I hope to see her grey pony being tortured sometime soon, and I'm glad all that fucking time I spent gluing isn't going to go to complete waste.

Costume Creations: RuPaul, Drag Horse

I really hope I did this one at least a modicum of justice with a limited budget and selection of girly things you can decorate a horse with. To me, drag is just about the most amazing form of costume creation ever, but that might just be because I don't even know how to put on eyeliner.

I sent out an S.O.S. to Sarah to meet me at the dollar store to see what we could come up with. We pretty much just plucked everything pink off the shelves, added in some glitter glue, and bought out all of their fake hair...literally. I already had the boas and tiara (of course), and I just bought this fucking amazing Hello Kitty neck sleezy that was going to be perfect as the base layer for everything. I added in a lacy yellow bra with some bling on it that unfortunately didn't come out in the pictures and we were ready to go.

I put Sarah in charge of hair while I started hanging necklaces and boas around his neck. Sarah not only accommodated my request for bangs, but she also gave them a rather stylish cut and side sweep. We brought Bobby outside so I could wrap his legs with the metallic pink paper acting as a sort of pant/sleeve/who-cares-it's-pink. I added some silver glitter glue as eye make-up (well out of the way of his eyes, no fear), and attempted to give him some luscious lips.

He wasn't too impressed with that.

But damn did it make for a good picture.

Once he was as decorated as he was going to get, we just stood back and admired what an amazing job we'd done. It took me probably a full minute before I was even able to get my camera out because I was laughing so fucking hard.

I mean, I really can't even. I have the most tolerant horse on the entire planet.

He decided on his own when he was done being tortured and turned around to go back into the barn. I pulled his tiara and wrapping paper and gave him a few cookies. You'd think he'd be ashamed to be spotted by his fellow equines, but I thought he might want to show his bestie Memphis, so I sent him off to the courtyard to say hello as I cleaned up (Bobby is allowed to wander at free will around the barn. He doesn't ever go anywhere or get into anything.).

Sadly Memphis was scared shitless of Bobby in drag, so Bobby made do with saying hello to everyone else that was in. Once he was done, I gave him more cookies and started scrubbing the glitter off his face and side. He had a few sparkles remaining around his muzzle, but I can only see that as a good thing.

Costume Creations: Frontiers-horse

This past weekend I finally got around to crossing off one of Bobby's outfits from my Costume Creations list. It was without a doubt the easiest of the ten to accomplish as Hubby has all of this pioneer shit awesomeness. We just needed a day where it was above negative digits to get the pictures.

danger on the horizon!
or just looking for my fucking dogs

After Hubby dug out everything he deemed necessary for me--a buckskin shirt, homemade moccasins, a silly leather hat, the capote, grizzly bear fur trimmed mittens (made by my BM), a muzzle loader, a fucking tomahawk, and various pouches and necklaces of various importance--we headed out to the barn to see what we could scrounge up for Bobby. BO dug us out a blanket to strap to the back of the saddle and donated her buffalo hide chinks for the cause.

Obviously we went with a western saddle and pad, and I dug around the tack room to see if I found a western bridle I thought would work. I pulled out the least decorated (because bling doesn't really belong out in the wild, wild west of however long ago, amirite?) and showed it to Hubby. He was all, "Meh" so I brought out the rope side pull instead. It just looked more bad ass. Of course it was also too small for Bobby so I had to take the throat latch off, but whatever. It worked.

 Once we got the two of us dressed, which was serious fucking teamwork because that buckskin was a bitch and a half to get on, we scaled Bobby's favorite snow bank and dove into the accumulating snow to start our shoot.

Bobby immediately took Great Offense to me carrying the gun. I don't know if he likened it to a whip, or just assumed it was a bludgeoning stick and that I had taken him out into the woods to beat him to death. Really love having a horse that decided out of the blue one day that things in a rider's hand (any rider on any horse--it's not just me on his back) are going to kill him. Love it.

Anyway, we spent a large chunk of time trying not to run Hubby over as Bobby danced all over the place and ran himself into bushes until he finally just got over it on his own and realized there was nothing to be a spaz about.

We took a bunch of shots with just the buckskin on, and then added the hundred and fifty pound capote and the mittens to finish off the look. Holding reins with mittens that are about ten times too large for you is really hard, by the way.

This was more of a dress up for me I guess, but Bobby definitely had to be there to complete the look. I think next up is either a pretty, pretty princess or his drag persona. It will involve a lot of pink regardless.

Costume Creations

A big thank you to everyone that suggested ideas! I think some of you might have overestimated my sewing skills (of which I have none), and my general craftiness (of which I have little), but I think with some (a lot) of help from my barn mates, I can make all of these work at least in a ghetto fashion.

Sooooo......

The list for the year is:

1. RuPaul, drag horse. Let's be honest. I already own enough pink boas to make this happen right now.

2. Moving skeleton. I'm hopeful I can get the camp kids in on this over the summer and get some really cool jumping pictures.

3. Frontiers-horse. Because Hubby has all this shit, from the musket to the beaver cap to the Hudson Bay coat (or whatever the fuck it's called).

4. "If you're a bird, I'm a bird." Inspired by Aimee's suggestion for a bird, we're going to recreate the infamous The Notebook kiss in the rain. Obviously once it's warm enough for some piped in rain.

5. R Patz as a vampire. I can't wait to play the brooding, open mouthed, resting bitch face Kristen Stewart.

6. A sheep. Easy, adorable, should probably involve a flower crown as well.

7. Katy Perry and Shark. This was just such an amazing as shit suggestion that I had to include it. I don't know how I'm going to make it happen, but I'm already on the hunt for a shark mask.

8. Pretty, pretty princess. Nothing makes me happier than pink hair spray, and it's obviously needed here.

9. Quarterback. Be still my heart, if you've followed this blog for any amount of time, you should know which one.

10. Native American war pony. Paint the pony everywhere!

I also loved Lauren's idea for a costume of a famous person each month for a calendar. I think I will probably have to do that next year.

What do you guys think? Good enough? Anyone want to road trip to NE PA and help?