The March newsletter was highlighted with, not surprisingly, a story about Secretariat. It is hard to believe that Breyer has now made him a total of SIX times in all sizes! While I don't deny Secretariat was a great horse, I do wish that Breyer would include other famous racehorses. While my last OTTB, Ace, had both Secretariat and Seattle Slew in his pedigree, I much prefer Seattle Slew, preferring his underdog story that sadly not many know about. Hint, hint, Breyer? The March giveaway is the Easter plushy, P'eggy, so if you haven't purchased her yet and you're a Collector Club member, be sure to enter your name. Finally, the sneak peek is said to be "something special arriving in April" with what looks like a bay roan color. Guesses have ranged from Nokota, the Marwari, Bobby Jo or another mold that's tail wraps around its body. I'm hoping, although maybe I'm too hopeful because I can't figure out a mold for the life of me that this is the Classics gambler's choice. One thing for certain is that is looks like it has a belly crack, and the only mold I know that has that is Dundee. It also looks like it could be his straight tail, so who knows? I did manage to one hand my customs over the week and, despite my injury, get the ones finished that I was working on. They will be live on eBay and Mercari tomorrow.
I'm wrapping up the end of a pretty bad month for us, between the bad wind damage that we had to getting sick for the first time in 10 years and finishing out the month by taking a fall off one of my horses leaving my wrist injured... y'all I'm done with March. Oh, and as to those customs I wrote about literally a day before my fall? Yeah, they won't be getting done on time. I'll finish them as I can but to be honest it is super hard to paint with one hand right now. Maybe... just maybe... they'll be worth more being the first customs I've ever made while injured? Hehe. One can dream. Speaking of customs, we did end up with a double reveal today in the form of the Best Customs Contest prizes: Kansas and Willamette. Interesting choice of names. Well, it looks like I'm going to have to update my surprise list because Breyer just loves to make my ideas into Breyerfest models that we'd all love but have no hopes of ever owning, just as with Zeitgeist, the volunteer model from last year who was on Celeste, which was one of my top three surprise guesses. Can we just take a moment though to talk about how beautiful Kansas is? Wowza! I have a soft spot for Forever Saige, and this pattern would have been a must have for me if this was the original Premier Club model. Frankly, I didn't really care for the shaded grullo coloring of the original so she never made it into my collection, but a flaxen chestnut blanket appaloosa? Yes, please! As to her friend, I was way off, folks. That was not a draft shoulder at all and I feel almost embarrassed for misinterpreting an Arabian, which is one of my favorite breeds, with a draft.
Which leads me to the last news of the day... the 2023 Premier Club welcome letters are now showing up and the stablemate for this year will be another shrinkie. Can you guess who? It'll be none other than Zafirah! Guys... I'm livid. While I love Arabians as stated above, y'all know how I feel about Zafirah, but honestly do we really need another new Arabian stablemate mold? If you want to shrink something else, Breyer, shrink Ashquar. I mean, y'all nearly did it with the ornament from last year. Or better yet, how about the Marwari mold? I'd love to see those curvy ears in teeny tiny stablemate size! Ok, rant over. The rest of the letter didn't reveal much, just stating that Heather has done something very dynamic in crazy colors (no surprise here - she is one of my favorite artists for this reason) and Kylee is the one that produced the mare and foal draft set. Looking forward to both of these. Hopefully Breyer doesn't make us wait as long as last year. The stablemate though will likely be for sale to anyone who isn't in the club that wants it. Those of you who have been waiting for the customs I've been promising this month... the good news is that a few have already been posted and several more will be finished this week. They're a mixture of Halloween (because I know how much y'all love those glowies!), Easter, a new whale series that I'm doing and a couple St. Patrick's Day limited editions. I know, I know, I'm late on those but better late than never. Truth be told I came down sick a week ago and everything got put behind. I'm feeling better now, although still regaining my strength, but my art table is full. I'll give you a sneak peek: Luck of the Irish is currently on eBay and Mercari. Pot o' Gold will be on this weekend. I'll see how these sell before I decide to do any more St. Patrick's Day customs in future. My Halloweenies will continue on my Halloween Around the World series with Hoia Forest, Catacombs (I will have a traditional and stablemate version of this guy) and Mummified for Egypt. Hoia Forest and Mummified are currently on eBay. I have a Classics American Dream that's a part of this series which includes a Hocus Pocus theme called "Salem" along with a stablemate from the English witch trials named Burning Time, both of which will be posted this weekend. My whales series includes Orca and Narwhal to start with, both of which will also be posted this weekend. Finally, I have a few Easter decorators: Egg Hunt (gold leopard appaloosa with colored egg spots), Egg Dye (gold with rainbow colored drips), Signs of Spring (Easter bunnies, chicks and lambs galore), Easter Splash (rainbow decorator with chick and rabbit shaped splash pattern) and The Meaning (a biblical scene on the Nikolas mold). Some of these will be posted this weekend, others I'm still working on. I appreciate your support in my artwork! Now to catch up on recent sneak peeks and a test run that was offered to Collector Club members. I never enter for the test runs but I am excited to see this colorway used, as it looks much more realistic than Breyer's newer sabino patterns, even though they said it was an older type sabino pattern. He was a bargain being a OOAK for only $1200 to whomever was lucky to win him. We also got a couple new random sneak peeks for Breyerfest after going weeks without much of a peep from Breyer about Breyerfest. I'm going to guess these are either raffle models or contest prizes, because I'm pretty sure they've shown us everything that will be available to us to buy. The first one looks like a bay version of Forever Saige, which I really hope not because then she'd be out for my surprise guess (and y'all know how I feel about Forever Saige) while the other is likely the stablemate reserve custom contest prize on what looks like the new Clydesdale Stallion mold or Giorgio. Both of them have that huge chunky shoulder, and they'd fit the theme being draft horses. Waiting patiently until Monday - hopefully - to find out for sure. Apparently Breyer is finally mailing out club welcome letters so keep an eye out if you're in any of the specialty clubs. I've only seen the Vintage Club letter arrive on social media so far, and admittedly not much information was given, but there were a few things that were intriguing. We already know three of the four releases: the music box, which Breyer does say in the letter wasn't going to be the first release as many of us originally thought; Go Figure whom Breyer tells about being the first pinto pattern on the Justin Morgan mold; the gold Secretariat which Breyer describes in the letter as "another 50th anniversary celebration"; a fiesty gambler's choice; and for the optional horse they just say it will be a black tie affair. Hmmm... wonder what all this means? The stablemate was said to be Anton a glossy shaded alabaster leaping Lipizzan, which I'm assuming might be a new mold since the only Lipizzan we have is Darwin and he's rearing, not leaping. Some exciting things to look forward to! I can't wait to see the Premier Club welcome letter!
We have a new Birds of a Feather who is now up for entries. Magpie was a popular guess, and those who guessed it were correct! This guy is beautiful with the bluish-black sheen that Breyer doesn't make enough of (at least in my opinion) however I personally won't be entering for this guy due to his mold. I don't collect the Show Jumper mold so more to those who really want him. He'll be a looker for sure in that flashy color! I just wanted to add that my web host, Weebly, had been sold to Square last year and thus they have changed their web design drastically to become more of a selling platform than a blog. While I don't intend on moving my website any time soon, unless Square takes the blog feature away altogether, I did have to reformat my web store. This was why I was selling back on eBay and Mercari for the time being. However, I have finally finished my new web store, and I highly recommend checking it out. I will be moving my items from eBay and Mercari to my web store in the next couple weeks. I will also have customs available starting next week. I appreciate your patience during this time of major change!
Breyer, y'all need to slow down with the releases! I just paid for my first Vintage Club horse 2 weeks ago and now they're already telling us we need to cough up another $120 for the next release! Ugh! I'm actually greatly disappointed with the second release, and I'll tell you why later on, but let me introduce him to you first. Without further ado, here he is: Glossy Classics Secretariat in honor of the 50th anniversary of this amazing horse. Since it is Breyer and we all know they love variations over there, they have to throw in a gold charm variation to 50 lucky club members. If you have the traditional, the classics would be the perfect mini me, and because Breyer sucks us in with all these variations (because admit it - we love them too) many are wanting to take the gamble of getting that gold version. He also comes with the ribbon shown in the back whether you get the glossy chestnut or the gold, although admittedly the chestnut looks more bay, in my opinion. Maybe it's just the reflection of the paint through the gloss making the slightly darker points appear black, but he doesn't look like Secretariat, in my opinion. Despite being a racehorse fan, I'm actually a bit disappointed in Breyer's take of him, and I won't be adding him to my personal collection.
Also, Breyer, why do you insist on making us pay $120 for a Classics sized model in order for us to stay in the club? That's highway robbery, if you ask me. While Breyer doesn't actually say in the fine print that all horses in this club will be traditional, it is assumed based on the price (please don't message me telling me that rare Classics can be worth as much as traditionals... I know that but not Classics limited to 1000 pieces, plus at least last year the horse came with a base) and should be added if Breyer wants to continue doing this in future. I've always stated that Breyer needs to just do a Classics club, and I stand by that. Stop throwing Classics in the Vintage Club unless it's the last one that people can bypass if they've already paid for the rest of the models in the club during the year. I'm hoping this is just a one off, making up for the music box that'll be worth quite a bit, but this is now the second year in a row Breyer has done this. How do you feel about Classics in the Vintage Club? For me personally, this may make or break my Vintage Club membership. The strong storms that affected a good portion of the south last week hit Kentucky on Friday night, devastating our entire area. I don't want to go into too much detail, as there is quite a bit to write about, so I'll just point you to my Rescue blog if you'd like to go over there to read about the damages and see some pictures for yourself. Basically our electric, including the internet, were out the entire weekend and was just restored yesterday after some crews came up from Georgia to help restore the power. If you've purchased anything from me during this time, I do ask you to be patient with shipping, as our local post office is currently still without power so it may be another day or so before I can get everything shipped out. That said, I had some shipments arrive right before the storm that I didn't get a chance to mention. First is Go Figure, who turned out more amazing than I was anticipating. His coloring is very rich and he even has slight dappling that I didn't notice in the stock photos. His eyes are bi-colored and his mane/tail are slightly pearly. Best of all, there are no flaws on him that I could find. My only complaint is that Breyer yet again forgot to put my COA in the box so I'll be having to call them about that. I've decided to rehome my Stablemates set, and because the buyer did request that I send them unopened, I will respect that and thus can't show pictures of them. However, my six pack of the new series 2 stablemates arrived, and since I plan on keeping them except for maybe a couple, I will go ahead and show them. They are cute, I'm especially impressed by the red roan appy and the grey pinto mustang. I will likely sell the black Arabian and the chestnut Smart Chic Olena mini only because I no longer collect those molds. Finally, those of you who have purchased Breyerfest tickets should be getting a pamphlet in the mail. It has a poster of the guest horses, the models, descriptions of each of the ticket types and a little information about what to do at Breyerfest. My pony needs have been satisfied for the time being. I'll be waiting (impatiently) for the release of the first Premier Club model. In the meantime, we have a lot of cleaning up around our property to do...
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