What's with These Kids: Attack of the Plastic Canvas Bunnies!

Spring is upon us, and it's about that time when I start thinking about what to put in the kids Easter Baskets. For this year's "to cute " craft I decided to bring back an old favorite - Plastic Canvas Kiss holders - in bunny form!

(Stay back! They're hungry!)

Basically they are just a 3-sided box, and when you squeeze the sides they open (in this case into a giant mouth). They can be an endless source of fun, you can keep small candy (like Hershey's Kisses, hence the name -kiss holders, or kissies), small toys or trinkets (rings, small ball, mini lego guy, etc.), or they can be clipped almost anywhere to keep you company - on to necklaces, purse straps, shirt sleeves or hems,etc. - I have one clipped onto the corner of my laptop screen right now ;) Another plus, the are fast to put together, rather indestructible (a plus since at least 3 of these are going to 2 year olds), and don't take much in the way of materials and/or skill to produce. For each bunny you need to cut from your sheet of plastic canvas 3 squares (12 x 12) and 2 ears (3 x 9).

For the bunny you don't even need much of a pattern -the only variation in color on any of the 3 squares is the nose-

to fill in the nose I just start toward the right corner and fill the two diagonals along the bottom and one up from the corner, and finish the edge around the nose (right corner). I know it looks like I started 3 spaces from the edge on the bottom row, but that's just where I finished the edge and tucked it back through. Really, if you didn't have 2 colors of yarn you could use a small pom pom for the nose or felt or something.

Once the nose is filled in, I go back to the left side and fill in my square. Then I finish the two edges that touch the nose - be sure you only finish those two sides because the other (unfinished) sides will be joined to other squares later to make the box.

One the face is finished you can work on the ears. Each ear is made from 1 piece of plastic canvas cut 9 x 3 then, chop off the top box on each side, leaving 8 x 3 on the left and right, and 9 x 3 in the middle. If you want to get creative (or overly complicated) you can use two pieces for each ear so that you can add a contrasting color to the middle of the ear (in which case you'd need the second ear piece to back the front one), but I didn't think it was worth the effort for my audience (mainly children who use them to "attack attach" the bunnies to each other). For me, it was easier to just take advantage of the fact the ears where 3 boxes wide which lends itself to going up on side, then back down and finishing all the way around.

When it comes to placement for attaching the finished ear, turn the square to be a diamond with the nose facing down, when you do this the fill pattern on the face look like dashes running across. Then, it's really just where you like it - I usually start my left ear somewhere about 3 dash lines in from the edge (attaching through the unfinished bottom of the ear).

The second ear I try to attach about the same distance in from the right edge. Once the face is complete you can fill in your other two squares. As you can see below, you'll need to finish 2 sides of one of the squares (this will be the bottom of the bunny and you are finishing the bottom of his mouth), and the other square stays completely unfinished around the edges (going to be your back piece).

Once you have all three squares you can line them up like shown above to make sure you have the edges in the correct places before starting to join them together. - I know, it seems silly, but it will keep you from attaching something where you shouldn't (don't believe me, mentally turn that piece in the top right of the picture a quarter turn counterclockwise and think about it).

Joining is fairly easy - (shown above) I start at the left corner of the bunny face and start attaching to the unfinished (on all sides) square. When I get to the corner I take the other piece with two unfinished edges and start attaching that to the unfinished (on all sides) square.

Once you get to that next corner you fold the next two unfinished sides together and join them. (shown above)

Now you have only one unfinished side on the back piece and the unfinished side from the face piece.

Push them together and join to complete your bunny.

His or Her face will looked sucked in, but you can poof it back out by squeezing his cheeks (or whatever you want to call the corners where his mouth opens) after you finish joining the sides.