Last year we took our little girl to her first horse show. We waited until the Fall when the local barns that host shows in the Fall usually have a fun costume class in addition to all the normal show classes. Since the movie Frozen has been all the rage - we simply HAD to do a costume with that theme. But how do you turn a horse into a snowman? Well - there simply isn't a good way to do that.... BUT weren't there some other characters in that movie too? Like maybe a reindeer? SVEN! Yes, Sven made the perfect model to aim for! So how did we pull this off?
First we got a pre-made Anna costume at Costco. It didn't cost much. We also bought a pink cape at walmart to go with it. Then stopped over are hobby lobby and got some snowflakes to use somewhere and pretty ribbon and brown felt fabric.
Next I used cardboard and cut out the shape of antlers. I got an old leather halter crown piece and then used an old metal wire garden stake that I bent into a U shape to give the base of the antlers some support and laid this along the halter piece - and fit the wire bend to the shape of the horse's head. Then I used tan colored Duct tape and covered all of the cardboard antlers with it and then taped it all to the wire U and the crown piece.
Once I was done with the antlers, I moved on to making the saddle pad. We put a fleece bareback pad on the pony and made sure the fleece would cover it. Then we cut a piece of the fleece and rolled it over the blue fleece girth that went with the pad so that it would match the blanket in color and used hot glue to keep it together. Then we put the fancy ribbon as trim along the sides and back of this saddle fabric cover to make it a little fancier. We also measured a piece to go around the neck and back to the saddle as a breastplate. We used safety pins to attach it to the saddle. A white snowflake then went on the middle of the breastplate for the horse to wear. Two more snowflakes went onto the pony's butt using tape to finish off the look! Don't worry - the tape was not very sticky and it did not pull the pony's hair!
At the show there was another Frozen themed costume - Elsa and Olaf. They tried to turn the small white pony into a snowman. I was happy we went with the less popular combo and avoided the dreaded "She has the same costume as me!" In the end we ended up winning "Best Themed" costume and my little girl took home a ballerina themed stuffed pony as a prize. She was super excited and after the whole experience, decided that THIS would be our halloween tradition instead of going trick or treating since that has become increasingly dangerous over the years.
Here are some pictures of our finished costume:
This year's costume is also going to be grand! I can't wait!