Rocking Zebra

Overwhelmed with Joy hosts Favorite Ingredients Friday every week. I admit that I'm not much of a cook, but I LOVE to do crafts! So, today I'm sharing one of my favorite crafts that I did about a year ago when Anna was maybe five or six months old.I made a Rocking Zebra for my daughter. It all started with a trip to a second hand store. There were two children in the corner of the store playing with an old rocking horse. It was a plain brown horse with a matted mane, but the kids didn't care! They LOVED that toy. Their mom came by after a few minutes and practically pried the kids away from the beloved (and well loved) rocking horse. There was a smaller rocking horse a few feet away. It had no mane and was painted crazy colors. The kids ignored that horse. After a few minutes of me circling the rocking horses, I talked my hubby into letting me buy a horse for a project. The smaller horse was 10 dollars and the bigger horse that the kids loved was priced at 12 dollars. I am so frugal, frugally frugal... or FRUGALICIOUS, that I talked myself into getting the ten dollar horse although I loved the bigger horse for its possibilities. Thankfully, Paul talked me into getting the bigger horse.

I took home my prize! I was so excited to finally have a project (the first project since Anna's birth) underway! I carefully sanded down the horse, wary of the glass eyes that they would not be scratched by the sand paper. Once I was finished sanding, I removed the matted tufts of hair little by little. And with help of my big strong man, Paul. Then, I started with a white coat of paint. I painted the whole horse white, once again careful not to paint the glass eyes--although I discovered the paint easily scratched off with my finger nail if I messed up.
Then I painted another coat... three coats in all to make sure the paint was nice and thick. After that, I painted the bottom rocking parts with a nice deep brick red. I only used non-toxic acrylic paint on the whole horse, so many coats were necessary. I just used what I had... nothing special. Plus I didn't want my precious baby to inhale the fumes of a toxic paint. Then with the help of Paul, I painted the black zebra stripes all over the horse. Then I coated the horse (after the paint had dried) with a clear sealer. Finally, I used a mop head for the horse's mane and tail. {I had to buy a mop for "mop puppets" in a college class I took that semester. There were holes drilled through the mop and it was a cheap mop... so once again I was using what I had.} I hot-glued and nailed in the mane and tail and at last (after I think three days of hard work... nah, it was relaxing and fun!) I finished my beautiful rocking zebra. An inexpensive toy that all of my children can enjoy. I've found similar rocking zebras for around 100 dollars or more. I made mine for twelve dollars. Of course including the items that I bought months before with the zebra NOT in mind, probably around 25 dollars total.



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