Lake District Julip Live 2015

Yesterday Jan, Elli and I traveled up to the Storth for the Lake District Julip Live. It was my second live show and every bit as brilliant as the first. We saw old friends and met some newer collectors who were all lovely. The location was beautiful and we all ended the day with a meal at the Ship pub by the bay. Thank you everyone for such a fun, friendly and memorable day!

The day started at 9am which meant a 6am start. We got very excited in the last few miles and thankfully got there before the spares came out! I chose a beautiful Appaloosa mare with a dropped head and her matching foal. What I've realised is really nice about "spares" is that I pick out models I'd never have thought to order but make really lovely additions to my collection! I also got a spotty bunny (having admired these during the online Spares but not been quick enough!) and a black one with a white nose.

Stacey had made beautiful lanyards inspired by music festival programs to remind us of the class list. Everyone had a different colour and different photos - these were such a nice touch. 

First up were the mould classes. I was a bit distracted by catching up with people and admiring the Julips but I did start taking a few photos.

"New Horse Moulds"

I think this beautiful dressage horse was a spare nabbed by Heather of Many Mini Hooves. I adore her colour and am definitely saving this picture for a future special order!

Another favourite colour - this light shade of bay is so pretty.

"New Pony Moulds"

In some of the photos you can see the coloured tokens we used to judge the classes. Everyone got these in red, blue, yellow etc to signify places 1-6. We all placed the horses in each class then added up their points, with 1st being worth 6 points and 6th worth 1 point. The horse with the most points won. I really liked how this worked and it meant that everyone's different way of judging Julips - prettiness or "one I'd most like to take home" or breed suitability or whatever - got blended into one.

Next up were the colour classes. Unfortunately I only took a few photos during this section.

Elli's very handsome dappled bay Mustang went on to win reserve champion.

Colour championship:

Beautiful chunky custom by Laura (resculpting) and EG (that paintjob!) from Last Alliance Studios.

To my delight my Goldie portrait won the Palomino class! He's never won anything every before, then this week he got this and a fun Facebook show win :)

After lunch we moved onto fun classes and scenes. I had two scenes, both based around a camp out - Bob the Shetland hindering the Pony Club as they tried to put up a tent in "Naughtiest Pony" and a general camp out for "Summer Scene". There were some wonderfully detailed set-ups in this section.

How cute is the garden shed this foal lives in!

Adelaide's stable yard set up - the ponies were so cute and although he was missed out of the photo there is a cat climbing on the roof.

Stacey and Nicky's fantastic driving set-up.

The fun classes ran alongside the scenes, including Best Dressed, Pets, Best Conga and Happy Families (which I could enter since I bought the mare and foal first thing!).

Golden (owned by Jan) and Autumn came third in the Pairs class and got a colour co-ordinated certificate.

I seem to have stopped taking photos after the Pairs class and I know I've missed out all kinds of beautiful set-ups, tack, rugs and horses but I was too busy playing with the ponies! Thank you again to Stacey and Nicky for such a wonderful day, and Laura and Richard for bringing beautiful spares and everyone else for making it so special :) (I sound like I'm making a speech sorry, I just had such a nice time again!).