I've been commisioned to make some things to give away for volunteers for an equine club. 14 to be exact. I have 5 hoof picks from horseshoes and need to make more things. I've been looking around at other ideas for variety but all I seem to come up with are horseshoe hoof picks, "real" horseshoes with horseheads for decoration and the common, weld them into hooks and towel racks. I was wondering if anyone had any good links for ideas. I'm not wanting to follow the run of the mill stuff you can buy at any wannabe western store. Problem is, I have one weekend to make the rest of things so they would have to be quick if I use them. And I have mostly draft shoes with either the caulks left in or the holes for the cauks.

You can make little trivets and plant pot holders

Horseshoes can be turned into hearts, spoons, letter openers, eating knives, and forks.. Use Horseshoe nails to make key rings, small ladle key rings, hearts, crosses.

Door knocker..... Definitely some door knockers. Use a horseshoe for the backing which screws to the door and rivet on a spur from a cowboy boot for the "knocker" itself. Looks great and functional.

Hope this helped,
-Hillbilly

Here are somethings I've made from horseshoes that I have pictures of, but there are countless things you can do with a shoe.

Brian makes my stuff look pretty tame but here is an item I made a few years ago based on needs...

I'm not paricularly excited about horseshoe wall hooks either. When I made one for a gift recently I decided to do something different and weld part of a railroad spike to it. It is shown here ready for priming. I was eyeing this post because I wanted to do something more interesting with these relatively plentiful scraps.

Hangers for bridles and such.

ive gone crazy with horeshoes .. ime makeing meat turners, hooks ,papertowel holder, toiletpaper holder, spoons forks bolth eating and cooking,and towel racks(forge the middle to round)door knocker .... and more i dont even remember... oho and a snake out of half a shoe...

bootjacks, flower pot holders, flower mangers

brian that is very nice work there.

Here are somethings I've made from horseshoes that I have pictures of, but there are countless things you can do with a shoe.

Very very nice Brian, that's beautiful work!

How about a wine rack either hanging or freestanding that uses 2 shoes at base and at the neck for holding the bottles

I made a snail yesterday just goofing around waiting for some kids to show for a talk about blacksmithing. Never got the eyes on but next time I get around a forge, I'll try and tack weld them on. You have to fold the shoe in in the middle to get the tail.

Brian and his brother are held in high regard in the California Blacksmith Association, nobody should feel bad when comparing their own art to to them, they rank with the best artist blacksmiths today.