Rocking Horse Redo

Last summer I bought a rocking horse at Goodwill for $10.  I was on a bit of a rampage buying anything cute and kid like.  Our garage has been filled with unfinished projects all purchased last summer.  I decided to tackle this one recently.

Rocking Horse Before

The rocking horse was in tough shape.  The back of the rockers were badly scraped and splintered.  The body was covered with scratches. The entire frame was loose and wobbly.  And the mane and tail were disgusting and smelled a little.

I started by prying the mane and tail off.  I wore gloves for this part.  As far as I could tell, that matted disgusting material used to be strands of yarn.  Next, I carefully removed the bridal, because it was in good shape and I knew I wanted to reuse it.  Then I began sanding the entire thing.  I sanded it down to the bare wood to get all of the scratches off.

Naked Rocking Horse (Sat in garage for 6+ months in this state)

My husband helped me add some structural supporting screws to make the whole thing more sturdy.  I filled the screw holes and the badly splintered rockers with wood filler.  I then stained the horse a dark walnut shade by Minwax.  Next, I coated it in a thick coat of oil based polyurethane.  I read that oil based polyurethane holds up stronger than water based.

The mane and tail were made from ribbon.  I followed this tutorial about how to make a korker bow, except I sprayed my ribbon with starch before I baked it.  It took seven spools of ribbon to make this happen!

Korker Mane

Finally, I attached the mane with a glue gun, reattached the bridal, and found some new eyes!  It actually looks pretty nice in our living room!

After!