So, as I mentioned, Henry's birthday is soon...in fact it's a mere two days away. As it turns out, this year his birthday also happens to be on the same day as Preakness. There is a long standing tradition in our family, when the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, or Belmont is on we don hats, turn on the tv and happily cheer for the horses!! Why? Because it's fun!!
So, this year we are having a Birthday/Preakness Party (well, it's gonna be tiny so it's probably more of a get together...)!
Anywho, in honor of all the festivities I made some Hockey Stick Horsies! Before I get started on the how to, some background...Two Christmas' ago I made Violet this stick horse using this tutorial...
It's super cute, and she happily accepted it and immediately name it "Bullseye", however, it was a bit too heavy for her to haul around, in fact, it still is...
Then several months ago on a walk Henry picked up this stick and pronounced it "A Horsie!" and began to gallop around. Aren't kids geniuses sometimes?!
And so between these two occasions something popped in my head...hockey sticks! I posted on Freecycle looking for old hockey sticks and low and behold someone responded! With six hockey sticks!
We cut off the ends of the hockey sticks, some we are keeping for actual hockey sticks ;) and then painted them. First, I gave them a base coat of white
and then topped it off with brown.
For the nose I painted black at the tip and a little white stripe down the top.
Then cut little ear shapes out of felt and glue them onto the stick and use buttons for eyes. For the mane I used a bit of the fake fur that I had left over from Sam but yarn could work as well. I used a small rectangle to put in between the ears
and a larger one to use down the neck. Before I glued the mane on I folded the edges toward the wrong side about a half an inch and glued them to hide the raw edge, then I glued the fur onto the stick itself.
Use some leather strapping for the bridle and then, voila, all done!
I've always wanted a horse, and now we have two making themselves happy here.
Oh, these are so much fun to make! And much easier for the little guys to gallop around with then the somewhat top heavy sock version...Now we are ready for the horse races!!
On your marks, get set, go!
Oh, I think we will be having quite a few horse races this summer!! But for now, these horses need a little break and a snack!
