Gift #797: March Rabbit

Artwork by Vikki Chu, 2015 Calendar from Anthropologie

Once upon a time, a white rabbit made his home in the heart of a lovely garden.  His family had lived there for generations and he had a fine rabbit hole, paneled in the richest oak and filled with comfortable furnishings and a plentiful larder.  He was surrounded by the treasures he and his family had collected from their travels through the years.  Oh, the wonderful places they had been!  Rabbits love to travel you know.  But it had been many years since his last trip..  he was an older rabbit now… though sometimes he still dreamed of heading off into the wondrous unknown again.   For all his love of travel, Mr. Rabbit loved his garden too and was content to spend his days chatting with the hedgehogs and the large family of field mice.  Let’s see.. how many children did they have?  Mr. Rabbit had always considered his garden to be of the enchanted sort.  Ferns towered like trees and moss formed rivers of green.  Topiaries were meticulously cut into fanciful shapes and well-manicured rose bushes cascaded fountains of white frothy blooms.  He and his friends would take tea in the garden every afternoon with scones and cream.  And Mr. Rabbit took care to always have milk and cheese for the young mice.  After tea, he would read to them a volume from his extensive library or they would indulge in a game of croquet on the lawn.  Yes, all in all, his was a rich life.

However, today things were different.  He had felt particularly restless, and when the sound of his clocks ticking failed to soothe him, he decided to go up to the lawn for a bit of fresh night air.  There was quite a commotion when he arrived – the sounds of wagons being unloaded, people excitedly shouting to one another, and lights swarming about the place.  Ahh, it looked like the big vacant home was about to welcome a new family.  Yes, he could see a mother and father, two daughters, and … was that a cat?  He would have to warn the field mice first thing in the morning.   Just then, he heard a soft voice say “hello” and looked up to see a young girl leaning down towards him.  Her golden curls fell about her shoulders as she reached out a hand to him.  He sniffed and looked up into her sweet face.  “Alice!” he heard a woman call.  “Come in before you catch cold.  You can play outside tomorrow.”  Mr. Rabbit watched her disappear into the house and thought  “With that girl, I could have one last wonderful adventure!”  Until tomorrow then.

My calendar for March featured this fanciful rabbit in a spray of ferns by the artist Vikki Chu.  Since designing jewelry based on February Fox, I decided that it would be fun to make a set of jewelry based on each month for the rest of the year.  For March’s design I wanted to create an ensemble that looked like an English garden, with just a touch of whimsy.  I didn’t want the jewelry to look overtly “Alice in Wonderland” with the rabbit, but I did want a subtle nod to the story.  I painted several of the metal pieces again (this is my current favorite jewelry technique) and used several pieces of floral and leafy motifs.  One of the pieces was a little large and unwieldy, but I wanted to use it, so I cut it up and it became the tiny floral clasp on the upper right-hand side.  To balance it, I added a few tiny white flowers as dangles on the other side.

Here are the earrings.  They are made with painted floral stems and a czech glass green bead.  Instead of cutting the wire flush with the bead after making the loop, I curled the excess wire up and around the bead so it looks like tendrils.

It’s a rather long post for today.  If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading and I hope you’ve enjoyed a peak at the jewelry I’ve made and the story it inspired.

Blessings to you,

Sarah