Valentine Easter Bunny

With all the projects for Valentine's Day cropping up, I was finding myself getting a little tired of it all and looking forward to the next holiday. The next one that came to mind was Easter. Well apparently the Valentine's "heart" theme was a little too stuck in my head and competing for brain-space while I was trying to focus on Easter.

And this is what I came up with. Follow along, if you'd like....

I started by grabbing a piece of paper from my recycle pile and cut out a chubby heart. Then I traced it onto a piece of pink, printed cotton.

I stitched the trace-line of the heart, leaving a one-inch opening to be able to stuff it.

I cut out the heart using a pair of pinking shears.

I stuffed the heart and then sealed the opening.

I repeated the process to make two stuffed chubby hearts.

Next, I needed some bunny ears, so I grabbed a little more recycled paper and cut out an ear.

The first one was too large, so I cut out a smaller size. I decided it was easier to visualize with two ears, so I cut two and held it up for perspective.

I prepared the fabric for the ears by placing a piece of felt between two pieces of fabric.

I traced the ears onto the fabric.

I stitched the trace-line for the ears and cut them out with pinking shears. The felt adds some thickness to the ears to help give them body to stand up.

Next I needed to start assembling my bunny. I began by running a threaded needle through the top of one side of one of the hearts.

I lined up the hearts to determine where to stitch.

I ran the needle through the second heart at the spot matching the thread on the first heart.

On the bottom of the second heart, I placed a button and stitched through it.

I ran the needle through a couple times, feeding through the button. I pulled the thread tight and tied it off. I repeated this process on the opposite side of the first heart.

When finished, the hearts were stitched together firmly, as pictured.

I help up the ears to see where the face should go.

I decided to draw out a face on a piece of paper and place it to make sure I had the right size and location. When set, I marked the location for the eyes.

I lined one of the ears in the back of the head, then ran a threaded needle through the heart, starting at the mark for the eye and running all the way through the ear.

As I had done earlier on the bottom, I placed a button in the back of the ear and stitched through it. I repeated this step on the other ear.

When finished, I had two soft-sculptured eyes...

... and decorative buttons behind the ears.

Next, I glued a large white pom to the back of the bunny for a tail.

I didn't have any eye buttons that were small enough, so I just glued a couple of 6mm black poms. Then I started experimenting with the rest of the face.

I love these little Valentine heart embellishments. I thought they would work well for cheeks. They might also work for a nose, so I might try that next time.

I tried a couple of arrangements of poms. This one was cute but I thought the nose was too big.

I liked these best, so I glued the face in position.

I decided to stitch a couple of soft-sculptured toes in to his big, floppy feet.

It's not at all necessary, but I thought it was cute. I stopped myself from adding round pink pads to the bottom of his feet, though there's always the chance I'll end up doing it later. (OCD kicking in.)

He's mostly finished, but I needed to decide what to do in the front. I tried positioning an egg, but this one was too big.

This was a much better proportion for this size rabbit. But I didn't like the cheap, plastic look, plus an egg by itself is pretty boring.

I thought a couple of poms would work as hands holding the egg. Still, I don't like the plastic look.

So the egg got painted.

Since I had time to wait while the egg was drying, I added some pink fleece to the inside of the ears. Still haven't added the pads to the bottom of the feet yet. (Any bets?)

Again, not necessary for the ears, but I thought it was cute, plus I had the time and materials.

I decided I needed a tiny paint brush. I wrapped embroidery floss onto a dowel rod and tied it on.

I trimmed the end into a point and wet it down to shape it.

I held it up to the bunny to check the size.

Then I dipped the end of the fabricated paintbrush into some green paint.

After several layers of pink paint, my egg was dry. I added a little more decorative paint to make a better Easter egg.

When everything was finally dry, I glued the remaining parts in position. And with that, I have my Valentine Easter bunny!

The fun part of this project is that you can pose the bunny holding different things. If you attach the items with velcro, you can actually use the bunny for both holidays, which means you don't have to store as much. A simple pink fabric works well for both holidays.



I think for the next one, I'll try a heart shape that's a little taller and narrower. Then maybe some flop-ears. And certainly an all-white bunny would be adorable.

Thanks for visiting! I hope you enjoyed my tutorial. If you'd like to see more like this, check out my home page childmade.com. And please take the opportunity to share a few links of your own. It's a link party that never ends! To find out more, check out my "About" link.




I'll be linking up on the following McLinky parties:

Monday
DIY Day at A Soft Place
Metamorphosis Monday
Just Something I Whipped Up
It's So Very Cheri
Make it Mondays at the Persimmon Perch
Made by You at Skip to My Lou

Tuesday
Toot Your Horn Tuesday
Today's Creative Blog

Wednesday
Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Designs

Thursday
Transformation Thursday
Show Off Your Stuff Party
Strut Your Stuff Thursday
Thrifty Thursday
Get Your Craft on at Life as Lori

Too Many Projects, Too Little Time

I NEED YOUR HELP!!

I haven't been able to blog for a week, or even make any crafts for two weeks, because I've been trying to gather links for my home page. I'll start browsing the McLinky posts, and the next thing you know, I realilze I've burned an hour!!! I just don't have that much free time!

Do you link to participate in the McLinky parties? So do I. But I've found a couple of problems with them.
- they're all over the place and I can't keep track of them all, with new ones popping up all the time, so I'm bound to miss something great.
- if I saw something I liked 2 months ago, I could never possibly find it again.
- too many parties, too many party buttons cluttering up my post and site.
- some of the link parties have over 200 links, which is very impressive but also very time consuming, plus I feel like mine gets lost.
- there is no way to filter through the things that I'm not interested in because the descriptions just aren't adequate.
- I end up linking to many posts that I'm not personally interested, undoubtedly missing some that I would be but simply don't have time to go through them all.
- when I have a project to link, I can't keep track of what day on which blog, so I end up missing a party as well any associated traffic.

So I developed an alternative, and I would love, love, LOVE for you to give it a try.


Check out my home page, childmade.com (don't get distracted by all the wonderful projects already loaded!) and submit a link for one of your crafty projects.

It's very simple, just like a McLinky, except that you get to include an image with your link. How great is that?! (Don't worry if you make a mistake -- I'll fix it for you.) Link to your specific post (not your site), then select your best photo to showcase -- first impressions are everything!

With your submission, you'll get instantly listed under the "View by Site" link, which will show all of your submissions for your site. Take a look -- you might find a few of yours there already.

Also, I will pull various crafts that meet the criteria of what I'm trying to feature on the site, and move them to the main page. This will make your site link available to the search functionality, which means that people will still be able to find your links even a year from now.

And finally, once a month, I will feature 25 different crafts in the gallery at the top of the page. One click on the gallery image directs them to your post. Hurry and get your links in now because I'm just getting ready to make the change for February.


If you don't have any of your own crafts to link, take a minute to check out what others have submitted. I think you'll find that having the image displayed -- along with the search capability -- is much more effective than what you might have experienced with the McLinky parties. McLinky parties have their place for sure, but for craft links and tutorials, this is definitely the way to go.

Give it try! I can't wait to see all your crafty projects!

I'd love to hear your feedback about the site, too -- even the bad stuff. Afterall, I can't improve it if I don't know what would make it better.