Beaded Headstalls

It has finaly stopped raining, I got some time in on my boy, the picture is of him last year, he's still a bit shaggy in spots now but he is starting to look good. I am working on hand beading a nice wide browband for his bridle because I just found out that we might be in a parade this year. I rode in it last year too but I ended up riding sunny instead of buddy because buddy is a bit of a fruit cake when it comes to crowds. So anyway I am making this beaded headstall, if it goes well I may be offering a few others on Etsy. I still haven't decided what other color to use, I am doing the black parts right now but by june he will have shed out to a not quite black bay color and I can't decide what color would really go well with that, if anyone has any color suggestions I would love to hear them, I need to buy him new ribbons for his mane also and I don't want to buy them until I figure out the perfect color. I was thinking maybe gold, or burgandy.... It's so hard i have tried every darkening shampoo and stuff on the market, he is just never going to be black!




Here is a picture of me on sonny last year, I did burgandy ribbons with him. Either way I am so excited about this summers riding possiblities, last year we tackled the water, at the beginning of summer bud was so scared of puddles he would do a dance as soon as you started to get close to one, and by the end of summer I actually had him swimming neck deep in the big river. This summer, well, there is a very large pasture full of unsuspecting cows and now that the last of the longhorns are safely in the freezer they are looking a lot less intimidating. Last year before the big pasture was finished we had to ride past the cows every day to get to the trails and buddy was so scared he almost tossed me a couple of times. Now we can ride into the cows with no issues, so I am thinking, how hard would it be to teach him to work the cows? Now, I really know nothing about teaching a horse to work cattle but it's just too tempting, I think that we could do it, the bull is the tamest of the group, none of them have horns, and I spent alot of time last year riding among them to get buddy over his fear that the cows were going to eat him. I am still doing research online but I think that this might be this years project.