College Creative Restraints

As a college student living in a dorm/residency, I have very little room for creative endeavors. I simply do not have the desk space needed for by belongings, course required materials as well as hobby materials like a sewing machine or a setup for leather work. However, there are still a few things I can do while I am here which is what I am hoping to show today.

One thing I did make room for is a desk buddy though. I'm sure many of you have ponies in your workspace, but with being away from home, I made the decision to only bring along one equine companion. I want to apologize in advance for the horribly grainy pictures. I am still experimenting with creating a setup with my crummy iPhone. At least there's a backdrop!

Breyerfest SR Quelle Surprise (Red Sunrise)

 This is the solitary buddy I brought to keep me company. I realize that to many he may not be anything special, but to me he is one of my most prized horses. It is no coincidence that this boy resembles the titular star of "Hidalgo"!

Breyerfest SR Quelle Surprise (Red Sunrise), look at that eye!

What I find particularly lovely about this boy is that, unlike the Breyer release of Hidalgo, he should be quite performance friendly. While I have yet to attend a show of any description, I am hoping to put Red Sunrise through his paces.

Breyerfest SR Quelle Surprise (Red Sunrise)

I don't know about you, but I could see Red as an eager and excited endurance mount!

Breyerfest Quelle Surprise (Red Sunrise)

One of the things that I can easily do in college is cross-stitch. I get some weird looks from others when I do this on breaks, especially considering I am a male in a video game design course but...I'm happy, and that's what matters. Some days I feel like a cranky old woman at heart, anyways!

14-count Aida, pattern altered from one featured in an issue of Model Horse Performance Magazine

I only have a few finished pads under my belt (about 7), but I feel that with each one I am getting a lot better. For someone who is self-taught, I'm pretty proud of my work.

18-count Aida, heavily altered Tetris pattern found on Pinterest

This is my latest project, and it's significantly less conservative than my previous saddle pads. There are a lot of different colours on this one, and I'm sure the geekiness of the pattern isn't lost on readers. I'm not sure what sort of setup this would compliment, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

Recreated Spillers feed bag "HDF Power Mix"

Another thing I love doing is making miniature versions of objects using paper and cardstock. While I have seen many fairly good looking feed bags, many of these are accomplished by finding a picture on Google and putting it on a similarly coloured background. While this can work just fine, some companies don't have images on their website that are a high enough quality, or simply feature a digital render of the entire bag!

So, I set about making a recreation of the bag with Photoshop. This means that I could easily control the image resolution, and it is simple to change the text and colours to make the different kinds of feed. I may put up some PDF files for download if anyone is interested, but right now my files lack most cutting and fold lines.

Breyerfest SR Quelle Surprise (Red Sunrise), with Spillers bag

I'm not sure if I got the scale of this particular project right, but I think it looks good enough for now.

Equine medical supplies (and some human supplies too!)

Most of these are from a download provided by the lovely Desktop Stables, but a few of these items are of my own creation. For example, the Ibuprofen box was simply scanned and reduced by yours truly!

What is nice about these paper creations is that the creation process does not need much room or materials, making it yet another good choice for a college dorm. Are there any other projects that you can think of that are great for when space is at a premium?