Bunny does not travel lightly

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust
Luna Lapin with her luggage ready to travel (Photo copyright Hanna Andersson)
Luna Lapin with summer hat and her luggage.

At first I thought my bunny was easy going and content staying at home. But I was wrong, very wrong. She wanted to pack her bags and go travel, to see where carrots grow and cabbage roam. Yes, maybe even visit her “real family” in Paris, France as she put it. I felt offended, as her originator, but I realize of course that “our children are not our children”… yada-yada, you know what I mean (and if not I’ll include it below). Children (a.k.a. bunnies) leave you an empty-nester all too soon anyway, and that is life.

In any case, she was not a happy bunny staying at home. So to help her out mom and I decided to do a “quick craft project” that turned out to take several hours to finish, and create luggage for the Lunas to lugg around.

Toy luggage with ribbon straps for Luna Lapin (Photo copyright Hanna Andersson)
The front of the bag that I created for my Luna Lapin soft bunny.

We dressed up a appropriately sized pieces of foam board in a paper that mimics the look of tan leather, then proceeded to add a bunch of details to make it look like a well-traveled suitcase and called it done. We made three because one of mom’s bunnies had already booked a flight to a nearby island, and needed to bring her “stuff”…

The details were as follows:

  • brown leather textured paper to make it look like real luggage.
  • ribbons that wrap around as old fashioned, do-not-open-in-transit straps, along with the
  • metal belt to close it, made out of gold paper (see detail on the photo above).
  • And then the thing that made this idea come to life: the miniature travel stickers and tags that we hung around the handle. I think that is what made this project come together, and also how it started.
DIY project to make handmade toy luggage for Luna Lapin to travel in style (Photo copyright Hanna Andersson)

I can’t remember where I found the exact miniature version for toy luggage labels and tags that I printed, but you can find something similar on my Pinterest board on Printables in the section I made about travel labels. Scale it down a lot, print and cut out. The fussy-cutting was the most time consuming, because these labels are tiny even as the scale of a Luna Lapin bunny is not that small. Luna is about 40 centimeters in height, that is ~16 inches not counting ears, 19″ with ears extended.

Luna Lapin with her luggage ready to travel (Photo copyright Hanna Andersson)

Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

― Kahlil Gibran

Previous parts in this series, in case you missed them, consists of a book review, the body parts and thoughts on bunny fashion. The next and final part will be about the great outdoors (read: the very bunny photo shoot in the garden).

Pin image:

We created handmade toy luggage for dolls and softies to travel in style (Photo copyright Hanna Andersson)

Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.

Margaret Lee Runbeck

This post is part of NaBloPoMo where I write 30 blog posts in November. Thanks for reading and leaving me a comment, that will help me finish this challenge. To follow along subscribe to blog posts via email or RSS. I also have a sweet Substack Newsletter about art, craft and creativity that you might want to sign up for so that we can keep in tough in the future. I’d love that. On instagram I’m @ihannas and on YouTube Studio iHanna. Take care and stay creative friends.

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