Hello!

Got a blog!

My name's Olivia, and I live in the UK. My main interests are horses, art and sport. I've ridden since I was 3/4 years old and a few years ago, I had a pony on loan. His name was Domino VII or 'Mino' and he was a British Spotted Pony, who had a pretty impressive dressage career. Sadly, I had to move on from him when I joined senior school as there just wasn't enough time.

I've had model horses since a very young age - again, 3/4 years old, although I've been told I was pony mad before that! To me, they were 'toy ponies', until a few years ago, when I was about 9 or 10 and discovered a very real world of model horses. The majority of my collection are still 'toy ponies' to me, as I had them when I was much younger, but I still show them in online shows and they seem to do well so hey-ho!

I customised my first horse way before I got into slightly more 'serious' collecting and discovered tutorials, and, well... It wasn't the greatest success. Said cheapy plastic model is currently in the body-box, awaiting a similar, but hopefully better new lick of paint. I still have my second and third customs though - Philadelphia, a sabino with tippex, and Bonito, my first proper re-sculpt and pastel attempt. Believe it or not, I still show them!

I also love tack-making, mainly for my Julips and Equorums, the core of my collection. The great thing about them is that because they are handmade and not uber-realistic, my tack doesn't need to be very realistic either. Despite this, my tack has still placed at the 3 live shows I've been to.

Current collection count stands at over 139. That includes:
7 Breyer Traditionals
1 Breyer Classic
37 Breyer Stablemates
3 Breyer Mini Whinnies
47 Schleich, Papo and Safaris
28 Julips
13 Equorums
2 Magpies
...plus an assortment of random cheapy other brands, and bodies.
Only 3 of my horses have been painted by other people... One was a present anyway!

Model horses to me are still my little toy ponies. They all still have the names I gave them when I was small, however shoddy. This blog is really to give you an insight into my cheap-skating, messy, trial-and-error world of plastic ponies!

Olivia