So I’ve been spending a LOT of time work on model horse bases and fencing recently, thanks to a custom order for a Stablemate scale photo show base. I’ve had fun working with the different sizes and coming up with some new fence templates (and storage boxes)!

That means I really haven’t done much outside of my tiny carpentry (and cardstock) work. I vacillate between painting things and building things and the last few weeks have been decidedly ‘building’.

Part of what I’ve been doing is going through my old fencing and trying to make sure I could recreate the colors. Some were done with wood stain markers and others were done with acrylic paint.

It took a lot of experimenting (and comparisons to the finished fences) before I managed to track them all down. Thankfully I also found out that the Rust-Oleum and Minwax dark walnut stain pens give me the same color!

After much experimenting, I found out that the 7×9 bases work best for getting good show photos and the 5×7 bases will work, but you have to be careful. The 3×5 are right out, unless you’re working with a foal or micro mini. (Oh well.)

I’ve started digging into photo showing, since that’s what the custom order base would be used for and it’s something I always meant to get into. It’s a little more complicated than I expected, but I’m hoping to get the courage up to submit something by midyear.

I did have fun coming up with new fences for the 7×9 sized bases! I did a two-post version that’s Template A (just so you could use it will all the bases) and then I created a new three-post Template D that only fits the large bases.

I’ve got them all up in the store now, but I haven’t gotten the new bases sizes up… so I’m not sure if that’s actually useful. 🤣

I also came up with a fence that’s a little shorter and has a flap board on the top to make a little ledge. It’s a random one-off that I’ll add to the store in a bit, but I doubt anyone will ever order one.

But, options!

I also came up with a better way to store the fences in a sort of faux-book setup. I then promptly ran out of sections and need to make a new one. 🤦‍♀️

I’ll do a post on it in a bit, since it’s actually pretty useful! I haven’t found a way to make it useful in terms of shipping fences, but can’t win ’em all.

On that note, shipping the larger bases means they won’t fit in any of my normal boxes. The weight on the largest base is too much for first-class mail and the medium one is iffy, so I’ve swapped them both over to priority mail in the shop.

But that also means I have to modify the priority mail boxes since the default sizes are much too large… I’m waiting on the shipment from USPS so I can start working on that. (Should be here this week, I hope.)

On a good note, the 5×7 bases are small enough that I can make cardstock storage boxes for them! That means I don’t have to worry about keeping dust and pet fur off or about them getting smushed during shipping.

I did sneak in a few new Safari ponies during all the sanding and staining– they haven’t gotten very far, but are my faux-NaMoPaiMo horses for this year! (I took a year off because I had too many other things going on.)

We’ll ignore the fact I have a whooooole herd of them that are already half-painted in the WiP boxes. 🤣😅

Oh well, ONWARDS!