I got an email from Angela at Spirit Horse Designs back in February of this year and she was interested in Decidedly Equestrian writing about her business. Our take away from the emails ended up being “lets work on something later this year and closer to the holidays.” Specifically, we planned on getting back in touch “in late summer” and “in July.” I made a note to myself to reach back out to her at the beginning of August on my calendar.
Fast forward many months and I lost Spice on July 31st. The next day, August 1st, I got a reminder from my calendar to reach out to Angela at Spirit Horse Designs. If that’s not the universe at work in a big way, I’m not sure what is. I was warned back in February, I just didn’t take heed.
Angela was extremely patient with me in our correspondence and helped me through the ordering process. It was SUPER hard picking out my items I wanted…there were several others I was in love with, but had to narrow down my choices. The unique designs are not your run of the mill horsehair bracelets and she has tons of interesting and stylish options available. I absolutely loved the Cerridwen, Shadow, Bella, Photography Mat, Griffin, Rhyn Celtic Knot and Kira Keychain. I ended up picking the Rhyn Celtic Knot (because I thought it would go with everything and wouldn’t be too dull with Spices basically monochrome black tail) and the Kira Keychain because I loved the portrait option.
Angela even told me not to bother washing his tail and send it as it was and she would take care of that, but I did manage to do it in my last act of grooming love for my beloved Spice. She gave me specific shipping instructions and I followed them exactly so that I did everything on my end to ensure the safety of the precious cargo in the box.
In exactly a month from my ship date, the items I ordered showed up in my mailbox. Along with the two items, were two beautiful printed art cards of the photo I sent of Spice as well as a jewelry care kit and a bag holding the rest of Spice’s unused tail.
The two ordered items came in a pretty box with a purple bow (purple is my favorite color conveniently). Inside was a touching card that said “I am with you…always.” As you can imagine, tears started to flow pretty significantly.
Once I lifted the card there were my two items: a beautiful bracelet in a bag for safekeeping, and the ring with portrait in the bottom of the box. More tears, but good ones.
I was immediately impressed with the quality of the work. I mean…as most of you know, I have done DIY projects about horsehair bracelets, but NOTHING I ever made compared with these. There is literally NO broken hairs in either item. The time Angela spent on each piece is obvious from that. Spice had terrible, fluffy, easily broken hair and the fact that she was able to find enough strands long enough to complete the work is pretty stunning to me. The bracelet is so perfect in fact, I have already received compliments on it from non-horse people…and when I tell them what it is, they’re amazed. It’s really special.
The beads and fittings she used are beautiful and the finishing work is perfect. These are completely worth every penny she charges. I am thinking of making another order to be honest with what is left of Titan’s tail… I highly recommend Spirit Horse Designs for your horse memorial items, as gifts and even if you’re just looking for something a little horsey with a lot of style cred.
Thank you so much Spirit Horse Designs for taking such good care of what was left of my dearest Spicey. I’m so blessed to have something so beautiful to remember him by.
