I feel Crafty! Oh, So Crafty!

So what's been happening in my world?
Oh, you know, the usual. Taking some lessons, signing up for shows, and reading internet DIY sites.

Wait, wait, wait... Shows? What shows?
Well, I officially signed up for the Texas Dressage Classic in early April. It already promises to be a party of old dressage friends (Win!). I'll be sleeping in my trailer (well, actually my mom's trailer. It has a TV and AC unit. And a fridge for my horse show adult beverages and a shower.... ) making my very own red neck trailer park with AG, a former YR from my high school days. This will not be our first red neck trailer park... And now we can drink. This can only end well.
I bit the bullet and entered two horses: Tilly at T-3 and 1-3 (oh god, I hope we qualify in one weekend) and Bucky at 4-3 with hopes of earning the first scores towards my silver. Maybe next show we'll suck it up and go PSG... but not yet, young grasshopper. Not yet.

How does this tie into my addiction to DIY sites (Lowes, stop spamming my facebook feed with amazing garden projects!)? Well, I had to drop my Padre off at physical therapy this week, and spent his therapy hour in Hobby Lobby. I actively avoid that place.
Not because I hate it. Quite the opposite. I love it. I LOVE being crafty (I'm just not good at it). In college I was an avid scrap-booker... 'Cause, come on, who doesn't want a scrapbook of horse show pictures, ribbons and drug testing receipts? It was so much fun and frankly relaxing to this little nerdlette.
But now we're in the digital age and I don't scrap book anymore. I share all of my pictures on this blog and attempt to type something coherent to fill the empty space. What's a girl to do?
When I'm in the UP, I can expend all of that creative energy fixing up the place, making my little antique farm into a real horse property. Here? I'm at a loss and surrounded by craft stores.

So I made my own stall plates.

Step One: Let's get started

 So I spent waaaaay too much time in Hobby Lobby with only a very vague idea of what I wanted to create. And to be honest, the concept was pretty fluid and drastically changed by each and every cool steampunk detail that I stumbled across.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I am totally in love with all things steampunk? Lets face it, when you look at it, it makes total sense. What is steam punk? Gears, vintage metals and top hats. What other genre would appeal to an engineer/dressage trainer who lives on a turn of the century farm?
Makes total sense.

Before and After

 So I bought some vintage/antique-y themed scrapbook pages to use as the backdrop for my master plan: To create awesome and uniquely themed stall plates to take to this show. One page is sheet music on aged paper and the other is reminiscent of 1800's wall paper. I cut the pages to size, used some mode-podge and decoupaged the hell out of it. So fun!

Awesome Little Gear Details

 I found some nifty little totally non-functional gears and nailed them to the corner in an appealing pattern using little tiny finishing nails I rooted out of the garage. All while being privately miffed that the gear ratios didn't match. Who designed this?

Buckles!

 Obviously in order to have an awesome stall plate/show sign, one has to have a way to hang it up at shows. The eye hook and chain thing has been done. Over and over again. I found some cheap metal buckles at Hobby Lobby (on sale!) and screwed them to the back of my signs, again using hardware scrounged up from the depths of the garage.

Is this too classy?
I submit that it is

 I thought that it might be nice to subtly advertise my little micro-business. After all I am attempting to sell Tilly sometime in the distant future. So I printed out my little logo (in gray scale because the printer was out of colored ink), cut it to fit the itty bitty metal frames I found (on sale) and decoupaged the crap out of it. After it mostly dried (sue me, I'm impatient), I attached the mini frame again using scrounged up finishing nails.
Adorable? Why yes, it is.

Nearly done!

 I attached some patently steampunk door knobs and bookmark page holders so that I could add contact info or ride times on a card. One knob is a aged clock face (soooo steam punk) and the other is just a cool bronze looking thing. It totally works in a way that most of my outfits don't.
I used little metal picture corners to hold and index sized horse info card. I wanted to be able to swap out the cards if I brought different horses to the shows.


Attaching ribbon

 So since I opted out of the eyehook and chain hanging style, I got to choose some nifty ribbon.. And in the future when I get bored or no longer find it awesome, I can simply change it out since it's just buckled on with brads.

What do you think? Awesome, right?

Letting the Glue Dry