Sleeping Beauty Spinning Wheel

So, there is this aspect of my life that I don’t write about much here on Charming Imperfections, quite frankly, because it doesn’t fit. Outside of the DIY projects, parenting, and trying to be a good housewife, there is a part of my life that has to do with horses. I grew up around these magnificent beasts and am fortunate to have an aunt that has a Friesian breeding farm: Horsemeister Inc. Every year she loads up her finest mares and stallions to show them off at the Illinois Horse Fair. We pride ourselves in being different with our presentation: rather than riding our horses around in circles showing off each of their gaits and maybe throwing in a trick at the end, we like to put on an entire theatrical performance for the audience. This year the performance was “Sleeping Beauty”.

Now, everyone knows that you can’t put on a Sleeping Beauty play without a spinning wheel. It’s the most important prop in the whole production, but how to acquire one? Buying an authentic one was out of the question: way too expensive for a mere prop. I thought about it a little and thought, why not make one?

I started out with an electrical spool top and cut out the spindles with a circular and jig saw.

The rest of the material are from a pallet. The four with notches cut out are the legs, the middle board is the supporting board, and that sharp pointy one is my fake spindle (I wasn’t going to make my poor cousin actually prick herself).

I wasn’t intending on writing about this originally, so I didn’t take pictures throughout the process of putting it all together. If you would like a more in depth tutorial, email me at charmingimperfect(at)gmail(dot)com. This is how it turned out, though.

Obviously it’s fairly simple, but I wasn’t going to get too complex with a prop for a horse show. I feel like it did it’s job in resembling the actual spinning wheel well enough, though.

And, there it is at the fair! Poor little Aurora has been enchanted by Maleficent and is just about to prick her finger (don’t worry the prince saved her at all three performances).

If you are interested in seeing the entire skit, the video from the Horsemeister Blog is below: