Show Stoppers: Custom Mini

Back in January, I talked about the handful of Traditional customs in my collection that have made the show ring. I have a few more custom minis than Traditionals - 19 to be exact - but most are either decorators (13 of them, can you believe it? I’m just as shocked as you are) or my mostly-not-great attempts at painting things. Only five of my custom minis have made it into the show ring with any regularity. Here they are, in no particular order.

 

 

This little cutie is a Breyer G2 Trotting Foal Stablemate. I got her in April 2015 through a Model Horse Blab Stablemate swap. 

For those unfamiliar, every few months in the mid-2010s (and maybe before that; I wasn’t a Blabber until 2013) you could sign up to participate in a model horse swap, where you’d paint a Stablemate for another Blabber and they’d paint one for you. All you had to do was fill out a quick form with your model horse (and candy/snacks/real life things) likes and dislikes. You’d get someone else’s form in return, paint them a model, get them something from their likes list (within a certain dollar limit), and ship it off. 

I participated twice, Halloween 2014 and then spring of 2015. In 2014, I painted a champagne G3 TWH for my partner, and received a really cool G3 Cantering Warmblood painted like a pumpkin - a bright orange body with a green mane and tail. He even came with a pumpkin costume! He’ll be featured sometime in the future in a Full Spectrum post. 

I ended up with two partners in 2015 after another member had to back out. I painted Legos onto a G3 Warmblood Jumper for one partner, and did a realistic buckskin G3 Cantering Warmblood for the other. In return, I received a blue roan splash pinto etched G3 Rearing Andalusian, a super cool Game of Thrones-themed red splash pinto G2 Thoroughbred complete with a wooden base with painted dragons and three house banners, and the little pink pegasus filly. She was painted by Evelyn Lauer and has a ton of detail in her wings. Her show name is Paige. She has placed at three of the four shows she’s been to and has one NAN card.

I visited Blab on a daily basis from 2013 through around 2018-2019; more sporadically after that; and then stopped almost entirely when the site was compromised and went poof for awhile in 2022-ish. I still check in every year around BreyerFest to see if the famous DooWiki is keeping a blog, but that’s as far as I go. It’s just not the same as it was.

 

 

 

I bought this custom G3 TWH from a fellow hobbyist at a show in March 2015. I am not sure who painted her. Her show name is All Ahead Full. She has been temporarily retired due to a large hoof rub that I need to repair.

 

 

For many years, the SE Ohio Model Horse Show was a fixture in Region 7. It was run by friends and fellow hobbyists Mandy and Tonjia, and was one of my favorite shows of the year. They always had a nice raffle, and in September 2013, this custom CollectA Hanoverian was up for grabs. I put a metric ton of tickets in for him and probably squealed out loud when my ticket was picked. His show name is Lucky Draw.
 

 

These last two horses are my own creations. This one, a G2 Thoroughbred, has been the most successful of all my custom minis. I painted her over the summer in 2010 after rejoining the hobby. She was my second attempt at pastelling and was based on a reference photo. If I had a do-over, I'd make the dapples a bit smaller, less uniform, and more well-blended.

 

I took her to my first ever live show, CRAB, in October 2010, and entered her in one of the fun classes - Custom by Novice Owner (over 18, never sold their work). I was hoping for a ribbon of any color, but she won her class! That was the highlight of the show for me.

Since then, she’s been on the table 25 times, has 17 breed ribbons (9 NAN cards), and 5 workmanship ribbons (2 NAN cards). In spite of her flaws, I’m super proud of her. Her show name is Occlusion.

This fun decorator G2 Andalusian was borne of a hobby night with friends. I’m pretty sure it was 2015 or 2016; I do remember beer was involved. I started him that night and finished him later on (when I was sober, lol). His show name is Vitral, which is Spanish for stained glass. He’s picked up a few ribbons here and there. I had a really fun and stress-free time making him.

Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth: A Supportive Sham

Apologies for the incredibly short post today - I had a busy weekend with Are You Kitten Me Live and commitments both Monday and Tuesday after work, so writing time was slim pickings.

Everyone knows by now how much I love Sham. He didn’t start out as an intentional conga, but by the time I had four or five of them, standing on a shelf in my childhood bedroom looking all proud of themselves, I was in love, so then I intentionally started buying all the new releases when they came out. By the time I started to cut back on collecting in 2001 after graduating from undergrad, I had nine of them. When I jumped back into the hobby with both feet in 2010, I started grabbing the missing ones up like hotcakes (and a whooooooooole bunch of duplicates, because for awhile, my motto was, No Sham Left Behind). My collection of Shams stands at 49 right now; the only one I’m missing is Niagara.

In early 2015, I was struggling with all the ways my life had changed since the previous May. I was in an apartment, living totally by myself for the first time - up to that point in my life, I’d always had a family member or a roommate or a pet living with me. But Chloie’s heart got the best of her in May 2014, and Chris and I had broken up, so I was on my own and horribly lonely. I reached out to a few friends for support; Heather B (who features in every post, I swear!) was one of them. 

On March 24, 2015, I came home from work to a box on my doorstep. I knew I hadn’t ordered anything, so I wasn’t sure what it could be. Inside the box was a note of support and encouragement, and this:

 

 

This Sham is from the #3162 Arabian Stallion and Frisky Foal set, produced in the first half of 1994 only.

Heather’s note mentioned that this particular Sham had been from her childhood herd, and she knew that Sham was my favorite and wanted him to live with me, and hoped he’d put a smile on my face during a tough time.

He did.

He still does.

Other Makes: Halloluck Cats

Today’s post was supposed to be a Full Spectrum, but we’re gonna go out of order a little bit to talk about something near and dear to my heart - our Are You Kitten Me Live benefit show, which we’ve held every spring since 2022. Our 2026 edition occurred this past weekend.

In early February 2022, the five of us hostesses started tossing around the idea of having a swap meet in the spring to unload some sales models. One of us suggested we have both a show and a swap meet in order to get better attendance, and then someone else suggested we do a raffle or auction to benefit a local cat rescue, and then someone else suggested that we make the whole show a benefit for a local cat rescue … and Are You Kitten Me Live was born. 

 

We secured a hall, got NAN qualified, and started advertising everywhere. We agreed that all expenses including the hall rental, ribbons, and prizes would be paid for out-of-pocket by us, so we could donate every penny from the entry fees, raffles, and auction to the kitties and maximize the donation. All we had left to do was pick a rescue.

Between the five show hostesses, we currently have eighteen cats. At least seven of those (off the top of my head) came from the same rescue - Wayward Whiskers in Greensburg. Even before adopting cats from there, several of the hostesses knew of Wayward Whiskers from the Cattfeinated Cat Cafe, a cafe and coffee shop with a small thrift store that also has two playrooms full of Wayward’s adoptable cats. It was a no-brainer to choose them as our beneficiary.

Our 2022 show was our smallest to date with just 21 entrants. (That was really all the hall had space for.) The day of the show, we found out we couldn’t use about a quarter of the hall space due to a ceiling leak, so that last-minute rearrangement and squishing was kinda interesting. Despite the small size of the show, we raised $2600 for Wayward Whiskers. The hobby really showed up!

 

That's continued every year since.

 

In 2023, we found a hall that was a little bigger, and were able to take 31 entrants. We got some wonderful donations - including a Quarantini centerpiece from Breyer! - and lots of items for the raffle. That was the first year of the swag bags with the now-famous catnip pierogis. Our donation to the rescue nearly tripled from our 2022 total - we raised $7700!

2024 found us in a gigantic show hall at the Turkeytown VFD, which could hold nearly 70 entrants, and that’s where we’ve been ever since. We’ve been able to draw in attendees from all over the country (and even Canada!) We’ve been privileged to have an elite, rotating judging roster every year thanks to people who are willing to both travel and volunteer their time. The quality of the judging is one of the things that makes this show the success it is, and I know I can speak for all of the hostesses when I say how lucky we are to have such a qualified group of people. Every year, we’ve had more and more help from hobbyists and non-hobbyists alike to get the show hall set up the night before, tear it down afterward, and run the raffle and auction. The Cattfienated Cat Cafe has come to the show two years in a row to offer free drinks to attendees. Thanks to the generosity of fellow hobbyists, the raffle and silent auction have both grown in size and quality every year, allowing us to continue raising truly astounding amounts of money - $11,800 in 2024, $12,250 in 2025, and $13,200 this past Saturday. That puts us at $47,550 raised for the rescue over the past five years! That money has helped get cats adopted into forever homes, care for sick or injured cats that make their way to the rescue, open a spay/neuter clinic, and, most recently, purchase a new x-ray machine.

We as the hostesses have a ton to coordinate, and we definitely do our part, but this show wouldn’t be what it is without our judges, donors, supporting cast, and the showers who bring their best models and dig deep into their pocketbooks to help animals in need. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever been a part of.

Today’s Other Makes post is directly related to the Are You Kitten Me Live show, and is a pretty funny story.

We’ve always had fun classes at our show, judged by the entrants using a bingo chip voting system. Whichever entry gets the most bingo chips is the winner. We started off with twelve classes, six based on cat colors (not limited to just cats as entries, though) and six miscellaneous classes - Breyer Cats, Other Make Cats, Cats With Horses, Rescued Things, Grumpy Things, and Destroyed Toys. In 2023, we cut back a few of those and added some Performance/Scene classes - Cat Performance, It’s Raining Cats and Dogs, Herding Cats, Cat Naps, and The Cat’s Pajamas. We kept ten classes through last year; this year, we cut that back to five in favor of allowing entrants (and me, as the person in charge of the fun classes) to relax and enjoy their lunch. The five classes this year were Collectible Cats, Cats With Horses, Cat Performance, Cat Scene, and one just called, “Are You Kitten Me?” We’ve seen some pretty fantastic and hilarious things come through the show in those classes.

The fun classes have always been my responsibility (both in choosing/naming them and in running them) so at our first show in 2022, I was searching for a fun little prize for the winners.

 

 

I found these cute little cat figurines by Halloluck on Amazon and thought, wow, those would work great! They came 9 to a pack, so I purchased two packs, and that was that.

Fast forward to lunch time on show day. I’ve got entrants walking around and depositing their bingo chips for their favorite entry, and I’m in the back where we'd stashed all the show stuff, grabbing the two packages of cat figurines to start handing them out as prizes. In addition to the outer bag, each cat was wrapped in its own plastic bag, so I’m standing there freeing all the little cat figures from their wrappings.

Enter one of my fellow show hostesses, who takes one look at the cat figurines and exclaims, loudly, “Oh my God, they have balls!”

 

 

Indeed.

So there I am, at a show that benefits a cat rescue that has to deal every day with the result of unchecked breeding, and I’m holding a handful of cat figurines with EXTREMELY PROMINENT TESTICLES.

Horrified is not a strong enough word.

I didn’t have any other handy options for the fun class prizes, though, so I had to gather my wits, stand in front of the entire show hall, and say, “Well, I got these cute little figurines as prizes, but um, they have balls, like, really noticeable balls, so um, sorry? And please don’t think this is reflective of any of our views and please please please spay and neuter your pets!”

Pretty much everyone found it hilarious, and the cats with balls became a permanent show fixture. They remained as fun class prizes for a few years, and eventually made their way into the swag bags. Every entrant now goes home with their very own cat with balls. The five pictured above were leftovers from previous years and now take up a bit of space on one of my Stablemates shelves.