Travel & Leisure: Frankenbunny

Uh-oh! There's something odd lurching down the bunny trail!

While the old standby colored plastic eggs and pink-and-white bunnies are fine for Easter baskets, they're also a tad insipid. This bunny is perfect if you're in the mood for a change. As a bonus, it does double duty at Easter and Halloween, and if you leave its hanging cord on it can even add a bizarre note to a Christmas tree.

Supplies:

• Generic bunny stuffed toy. (Ours measures about 4 1/4"/10.5 cm from toes to ear tips.)
• Green, black acrylic craft paints
• Medium and small sized brushes
• Two small nails or screws
• A scrap of fabric for Frankenbunny's jacket. (Ours measures about 4 x 2 1/2"/10 x 6 cm.)

The stock bunny

Here's a generic bunny straight from the crafts store. We'll start by removing all labels and tags and that silly little bow tie.

Add an unhealthy pallor

After removing the tags, paint the bunny. We dampened our bunny, daubed green on in different areas, and squeezed the paint around to get interesting color variations

After the green paint dries, paint on black shoes, hair and scars. Allow all of the paint to dry.

Insert nails or screws into the sides of bunny's head or neck. The nails may need to be cut short so they won't protrude all the way through bunny's head. They may also need to be glued down if they're wiggly and start to fall out.

Make a jacket

The bunny needs a jacket. Lay him out on a rectangular scrap of fabric and mark the approximate location of the tops of his arms.

Cut armholes where you previously marked the arm locations. This needn't be too precise or tidy.

Try the jacket on the bunny to see how it fits.

We found that it fit a bit loosely in the back, so we pinched up the excess fabric and sewed a seam straight down the back.

Here's the jacket after a seam has been sewn down the back. Note the jagged slits which have been cut on the bottom of the jacket to add a bit of faux wear and tear.

Here's the other side of the jacket. We also folded a collar over and sewed it down. (The black marks at the top and bottom of the photo are from an ink pen, when we were initially deciding how big to make the jacket.)

Here's Frankenbunny modeling his new jacket. It isn't too bad, but wouldn't it look better if it was grey and dirty-looking?

To grey up the jacket, remove it from the bunny, wet it, and daub on black paint. Smoosh the paint around so the jacket is grey and perhaps a bit blotchy, then smooth the jacket out into a cylinder shape and let it dry. (Letting it dry in a cylinder shape will help it go on the bunny easier and lay flatter on his body.)