Southern Cross Studios

I've recently had a huge light-bulb moment and have made the decision to offer tack and accessories for the large, 18" play horses, such as American Girl Doll, Our Generation, and other similarly sized horses.

Items offered will be English and Western saddles and bridles, Arabian costumes, Indian costumes and perhaps Circus costumes as well.

I'm currently working on my first prototypes and will post pictures ASAP.  :-) Stay tuned......

Summer is normally a very busy time of year for me. It's difficult for me to sit in the house and make tack when I've got so much pulling me elsewhere. I have a large garden and yard to tend to, lots of little critters to care for, as well as my household chores and four children.

To add to this list of distractions, is my daughters' little four-year old Arabian gelding. He didn't have much of an appetite from the very first day that we had him, and began to lose weight. Taking him to the vet and having him run a variety of tests on him, we quickly discovered that he has kidney failure. The chances of him surviving this are very slim. There really is nothing that can be done to help him. So we've brought him home from the vet and are doing our best to keep him happy and comfortable until the day he tells us he's ready to move on. He has lost so much weight, but is still so sweet and loving, and always looks forward to getting attention and lots of love.

Here's a picture of him on the day of his arrival, just a short month ago:

And here's a picture from last week. You can see how his bones are beginning to show a bit more:

I've been promising my daughters for several months now that I would paint some of their old, beat-up Breyers. I've always had just  "one more saddle to finish" before I could commit to painting. Well, I'm putting the finishes touches on my latest saddle and then I will begin painting. My daughters' lists of models to be painted includes an old Palomino Family Arabian Mare and a Pluto. Interestingly enough, the colors they've picked out for them are palomino and light grey, respectively.

On MY list of models to paint:

And here's a peak at the huntseat saddle I mentioned that I was finishing:

It's finally done! Check out the pictures in my photo gallery. Here's a sneak peek:

I am almost done with a traditional sized dark brown saddleseat saddle that will be available for purchase. I'm finishing up on the girths (I'm offering TWO with this saddle!), and will have pictures posted shortly. Stay tuned!

Well, here I am starting completely over from scratch, after finding out about Geocities imminent demise. I kinda feel lost....not really knowing where to begin. I've had my Geocities site for probably 10 years now.

Along with the new site, I thought it would be fun to have a blog available to me for giving updates and any other pertinent information regarding my tack. I've recently made the decision to switch my girth buckles over to tongue buckles, instead of the slip buckles that I've been doing all these years. It's definitely more labor intensive/time consuming, but I think will be well worth it! Stay tuned......