Horses + Books = BCC Pt. 2

Here’s part 2 of my BCC entry.

I think the last time I’d started and completed a harness was when I showed in the Breyerfest C/Y show. I hadn’t made the harness from scratch. I’d frankensteined together the Breyer Country Gig cart harness and added upgrades here and there. I don’t know where that harness is now, but it wasn’t great. It was more fragile than the cart, which is saying something because if I look at the cart wrong, even now, it falls apart.

Breyerfest 2010 C/Y Show Kristian Beverly's Country Gig Cart and Harness.
Breyerfest 2010
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Books + Horses = BCC

It’s the Best of Customs Contest season, aka the Oscars of model horse world. The contest highlights the artistry and creativity of the hobby.

It’s been a few years since I last entered. I’d planned on entering the Performance Excellence last year, but my custom Roxy just couldn’t come together in time.

Once the 2023 theme class was announced, Dress To Impress, I knew I had to do it.

This year’s theme is not for customized horses, but to showcase the skill of miniature tack makers!  Show us your best custom tack on any Original Finish Breyer model of any scale.

Breyer

I had numerous types of tack to choose from. English? Western? Native American regalia? Medieval? I’d made all of those before and could have done it again, just taken up a notch. I decided to go big or go home and not do any of the aforementioned types of tack. I decided to make a harness and cart.

Books and horses have always been my favorite things, so I decided to combine them. I’m so happy with how it came out.

Next I’ll have a post about how I did it!

Alt Text-ing

Thank you to Maeve King-Devery for making this and raising awareness. Everyone should be able to participate in the hobby, and I’ll do better with adding alt text in the future. Thanks for allowing me to share this!

Alt text describes the contents or function of an image on a page, and is what a screen reader uses to decipher an image. by adding alt text to your image, anyone who uses a screen reader will be able to enjoy your content! The Best Customs Contest and the leadup to Breyerfest is an exciting time, but blind and visually-impaired hobbyists can feel left out when content is being posted to social media without alt text or image descriptions.

Text that says "Alt text: Let's make the hobby more accessible." Below the text is a picture of a Freddy resin (a grinning Black Forest Horse stallion sculpted by Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig and painted by Heather Bullach to a very deep flaxen chestnut) with a little speech bubble that says "accessibility is totally rad".
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Estate Shopping

I’m not sure how my mom ended up being on the newsletter list for a local estate business. One day she just started forwarding emails to me and I’ve been opening them since.

I’ve had some amazing finds at the estate sales. My best find from last year was a 27-inch iMac for $60. I didn’t know if it worked, but it’d looked to be in good condition and was worth the gamble. It became my sister’s computer because I didn’t need two of them!

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