The Velveteen Rabbit... or FrankenBunny

First, I obviously really suck at this whole keeping-up-with-a-blog thing. Oops. Second, I apologize that all of the pictures on this post were taken with my phone. It's just easier than trying to find the big camera and I'm pretty sure that the battery is dead anyways. But moving on...

Let me tell you the real story of "The Velveteen Rabbit." Lou's best friend in the whole wide world is her stuffed Bunny. My parents got Bunny as an Easter present for Lou when I was still pregnant with her, and the two of them have been on many adventures together over the last five years.

Bunny when she still had some fluff. I think Lou was about 15mo here, maybe?

Awww! Look at how cute! Long story short, Bunny is Real. If you've ever read the story of "The Velveteen Rabbit," you'll know what I mean. And something terrible happened to Bunny on Monday:

Roxy happened.

Basically, Lou took Bunny outside to play and left her and our dog ate her face off.

Joe started calling her "Zombie Bunny."

When Lou saw what happened, she broke down. She just stood there hugging her poor, mauled baby, crying and apologizing. Okay, I fully admit, I bawled too. It was absolutely heart wrenching. I was able to find the nose in the grass but it was all chewed up. One eye was never recovered.

 Joe was so awesome. He got right on the phone and started trying to track down a new one. He first called Kohl's, which is where she came from five years ago, and explained what had happened to the customer service lady. Joe was describing Bunny to the woman and referred to her as an "Easter bunny." Lou heard and started bawling, "She's not an Easter bunny! She's a Princess Bunny!!"

They no longer carried this bunny, but she was able to give us the name of the manufacturer, whom Joe also called, but they no longer make it. So our hunt turned to eBay. We actually, miraculously found a new bunny on eBay and very quickly bought it. But Lou took one look at it and said, "That's not my Bunny. My Bunny does not look like that." We explained to her that once upon a time, she actually did. This bunny still had a smile and whiskers, and a fluffy coat and tail, and still had the baby toy bunny sewed into her arms. This bunny was not Real yet. Lou warmed up to the idea of the new bunny, but said that it still just wouldn't be the same. And I had to agree. So I became determined to fix Bunny as best as I could.

First, Joe and I spent date night tracking down materials to fix Bunny. This meant a trip down the incredibly scary dismembered doll aisle at Hobby Lobby to get a new nose and eyes. Seriously, that aisle terrifies me. Brings back bad "Chucky" memories. *shudder* It also didn't help that Joe kept following me down the aisle waving the dolls around, creepily saying, "Lindsay, come play with me. I want to be your friend!" (Note: Joe's aforementioned awesomeness with tracking down a new bunny, and his willingness to spend date night at Hobby Lobby are the ONLY reasons I put up with creepy doll play-date invitations.)

We couldn't find any type of material that would match the gnawed-off face, so we decided to get another stuffed animal and use the material from it. Sadly, the dog is a touch more yellow than Bunny was, but it was the closest we could find.
 

Say "Hello" to my ugly little friend.

I then measured the nose/snout part on Bunny and drew a circle on the back of the dog and cut it out:

I then destuffed Bunny's head because the fluff was full of dirt and grass. I guess it was inevitable that this would be the point when Lou would walk in and stare at me and ask, "What. Are. You. Doing. To. Bunny???"

After defluffing, I carefully used my seam ripper to remove the rest of the snout part. I had some concerns about this next step because the face was chewed off to just below the right eye and I wasn't sure how to even it out. I decided a "chin-ectomy" was in order. I cut out a piece of material out from right below the bottom of the snout and sewed it on to the top part below the eye.

The innards of this Bunny are just as creepy as the innards of a real bunny, though thankfully less bloody.

Next came the nose. Now, Bunny originally had a pale pink nose, and all Hobby Lobby had were black ones. The original was too chewed up to work, but of course, Lou demanded a pink one. So I got creative and painted one of the black noses with a silver paint marker, then colored that with a pink sharpie marker, and then put a clear top coat of nail polish on it for durability. From there, I attached it to the snout and then sewed the snout on. Of course it all had to be hand-sewn. Blah. But in the end, I think it all worked out. It's a little uneven, but she definitely looks a lot better than she did a few hours before!! Lou's good with it, so that makes me happy. She did notice that the color was a bit off and the nose isn't right, and at first it upset her, but she's made her peace with it. Actually, she said, "Mom, I would really like for Bunny to have a pale pink nose but if she can't have one, then it's ok." Needless to say, I found some pale pink noses online and they should be here in a few days. =) The New Bunny comes tomorrow and Lou's excited, but she keeps making sure that we're not throwing Bunny away. Believe me, kid. We will NEVER throw Bunny away.

FrankenBunny lives!!