Rebecca Ray Equestrian-Influenced Accessories

Rebecca Ray's handbags, jewelry, key chains, pillows and placemats are quintessentially equestrian!   She lives in the Chagrin Falls area near Cleveland (a great place to visit if you like the horsey set) and she hires Amish women to stitch her products, all by hand of course.  Her products are top quality (brass fittings like you would find in a tack shop, real leather), and her rosettes are hand selected for each bag.  Colors are pink, red, orange, brown, and tan.  Take a peek:



Here are some of her bags:

The "Whitney Squares" bag is one of my favorites.  She also offers a summer version.

This orange bag will go with everything.  Nothing beats "Equestrian Orange."  I love these more casual bags:

And these accessories are just too cute....I could do some serious shopping damage here.  Love the "Hermes look" of her bracelets, for a lot less......

I could think of a thousand places for this pillow to go.  Look for Rebecca Ray in gift stores, higher end tack stores and at some of the larger horse shows.

Baby April - Part Three, The Fugly Stage

Most babies, if not all, go through the "fugly stage" at some point in their young life.  Baby April went through this stage too, and you can see by comparing the photos below to those in earlier posts (Baby April Parts One and Two), that she went from an adorable filly to a not very good looking 18 month old, to a scrumptuous three year old.

These photos were taken when she was living in Maryland when she was about 18 months old. My how she has changed, for the better, thank goodness. Her sweetness jumps out in these photos.  She, even today, is like a giant 1400-pound puppy dog and wants to be hugged and kissed and petted.  This ugly duckling did indeed turn into a swan!

From this:

To this................

Animal Truffles

Last week I came across these adorable animal truffles, just in time for Easter.  They are simply too cute to even think about eating.  The ponies are my favorites.  Enjoy!

Lament on Lamps

Finding good lamps used to be easy. Not sure what has changed, my taste, the styles, or my pocketbook, but for years I bought all of my lamps at The Kellogg Collection. In decorating my county house, though, finding what I want has been a different story.

Everything I find that is either too frumpy or too contemporary and not in keeping with a "sophisticated country house" which is the look I am after.

I looked at these for my guest bedroom, very reasonable, the color and height are right but came across too "cute" and too "looks good with my West Elm furniture" for what I need.

Would love to own a pair of these, but at the moment, outside my price range. (Photo courtesy of The Style Chronicle Blog).

Many have recommended these Robert Abbey lamps, a much cheaper imitation of the Christopher Spitzmiller lamps pictured above.  But these don't come in a color that I can use either and I like the ones below (from The Second Yard) much better.

These are adorable, budget-friendly for a guest bedroom (From The Second Yard in Roanoke, VA), but they don't come in a color that I can use:

While my intention was not to use white lamps, I am favoring at least one of these Wildwood lamps in the guest bedroom (in white).  I wanted a light aqua color for the bedside tables and could possibly use the white on another table in the room.

Or possibly this one, also from Wildwood:

Would love to learn where you shop for lamps. 



Jockey Stems

It's a long story but about 10 years ago I started collecting "elegant glass" made mostly by artisans in Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and Northern West Virginia. Some of the most beautiful stemware you have ever seen was made in this area and the period I love is mostly the 1920's and 1930's.

We've lost so much elegance in this country, I long for a period when you dressed for dinner, wore gloves regularly and dined in style every night of the week.

So what does this have to do with "equestrian chic"? I'll show you...................

We are a month away from the Kentucky Derby and at my house we don't pull out the silver mint julep cups for the Run for the Roses. Instead, we pull out our Old Morgantown Glass Jockey Stems. Take a look:

These glasses were made for Gulfstream Park Racetrack in the 1940's. I assume that there was a restaurant or a club at the track where they served drinks in these Jockey Stem Glasses. They come in only two colors, the "amber" stem in the first photo and "clear" in the second one.  The photos don't do the glasses justice.  These were part of the "institutional line" for Old Morgantown, they made glasses for companies, railroads, etc.  But can you imagine a race track today serving its guests with these?  They are really fun. I try to imagine who used them and the stories they could tell..........

Needlepoint Belts

Maybe your mother or even your grandmother needlepointed.  In my house, it never went out of style.  It is relaxing and there are so many unique projects today - ornaments, pillows, door stops, rugs, and belts.  

Needlepoint belts are timeless, are a great way to dress up a white t-shirt and jeans in the summer and a simple black turtleneck in winter and even your SO will love one.  When the leather backing wears out you can have it replaced.  If you gain weight just add longer leather tabs.  These have always been chic in the equestrian world and now you can stitch a belt in almost any motif known to man from your profession to a baseball team to flowers to farm animals.  There are lots of sources for belts and I send mine to Journeyman's in Middleburg, VA for finishing.

If you don't want to stitch your own, then you can buy them "off the shelf" at Smathers & Branson:

J McLaughlin makes these:

These belts from Tucker-Blair are "ready made" and quite economical.  

But I prefer making my own and it does not take that long to stitch one.  Then you can also select colors, add your initials and chose your thread (wool, cotton, silk, silk/wool blend). 

This belt looks good once it is stitched but I would change the background color to orange, light blue, green, or even a shade of lavender.  I love the Gucci look.  You can purchase this online here.

The Jockey Silks belt below is popular and has been around for a long time.  This looks good with a black background for contrast (and it won't show dirt).  You can order this one here.

One of the best sources for equestrian belts is M's Canvas House in Lexington, KY.  If ever in Lexington, stop by as there is much more in the store than online. They have a lot of "horsey" stuff unique to their store.

Baby April, Part Two

When Baby April left the breeding farm in PA near Baltimore, she went to Maryland (less than an hour away) where she lived for about a year with one of my trainers.  The day we went to pick her up since she had never been off the farm, had never seen a horse trailer, we brought a pony with us to ride with her.  April literally walked on the trailer, neighed once and started to munch hay.  She has never had issues trailering, even by herself at an early age.  I also body clipped her at 18 months just to see how she would handle it - could have cared less, a good sign!

These photos were taken about 10 months later, in the summer, during a visit.  In the summer months she
turns golden and then a deep blood bay for about a month before her winter coat starts to come in. She is about 18 months in these photos and she already larger than the other young horse she lived with who is a year older:

When she was two I moved her out to the boarding barn where my other horses lived in Western PA. She lived there for two years not counting the times she went out to "school."

At age 2 1/2 I sent April back to Maryland to be broken, to a local trainer who mainly broke racehorses.  He told me she was one of the easiest horses he had broken and I came and picked her up after two months (instead of the usual three) and I rode her myself for about a month before it got cold.  Here are a few shots taken around that time, at the boarding facility. Notice her tail; until very recently about 1/3 of her black tail was vanilla in color.  It was striking and I was hoping that she would not outgrow it, but very recently she did.



This photo is in the summer, so this must have been around age 2 1/2.  Notice the big ears.  She gets that from her mother.  Her star and snip also come from mom.  That is me holding her:

She is well over 16 hands and is not even three years old.  When she was three I sent her back to school for a few months (from March to May) to a trainer in Pittsburgh who worked on her flat work in a huge indoor.  She is pretty uncomplicated, just strong, even today.  Here is a photo from that period:

She is getting really big by this time, and starting to fill out.  She stayed in Pittsburgh for a bit and then I brought her back home where I kept her going until December of 2009, when she went back to school again!  One thing I will say about her is that even though she is huge, she is like a giant puppy dog. She wants to be hugged, kissesd, brushed and of course, fed!  More to come!