It’s First Friday in our little shop and this month we are introducing some BIG bunnies! We call this new collection, “Hop,” and all of the pieces are created from our original watercolor paintings. We started with one big bunny, but one bunny led to another bunny … and another … and the next thing we knew, we had painted an entire warren of gentle soft little, and sometimes very big bunny rabbits.
The bunny above is 5 feet tall! I know that is not quite as tall as Harvey, but, to a toddler, he’s a big friendly bunny to watch over the nursery at night. He also comes in small, medium and large, so he can fit on a tall wall or a little book nook. He makes a great statement piece in a modern neutral nursery, but he can also be the star of a classic baby’s room. We have created lots of fabric wall decals to coordinate with our batch of bunnies. There are carrots, radishes, dragonflies and bees … and as always, our decals are repositionable, so bunnies and friends can hop from room to room. And some might want to hop onto a cheerful kitchen wall.
Why bunnies? For me, there were so many important rabbits in my childhood. For one thing, I could never see the man in the moon, but I most certainly could see the bunny in the moon … and not the one bunny that some see looking to the left … I actually saw the mama bunny cradling her baby bunnies. I guess you could say I saw the mom in the moon. Can you see her there?
Most of my happy bunny memories, however, came from the pages of our picture books. Then later, from the pages of the books I read to my own children. Who would have thought that those very children would one day help me to create a collection of bunnies for other children around the world? I love that. (While I write this post, Julianna is adding the last few bunny touches to the canvas prints.)
Our bunny friends are probably your bunny friends, too! Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Pat the Bunny, The Runaway Bunny and, we can’t forget the Fierce Bad Rabbit.
But of all the famous long-eared friends, The Velveteen Rabbit is my favorite. So, I think I’ll end this homage to the humble bunny with a quote from Margery Williams’ wonderful tale, in which a beloved toy learns what it takes to become real.
“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
– Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
We hope you enjoy our new collection and that our little family of bunnies might become real for new babies near and far.
