A Garden of Dreams...and Other things.

I’ve received a couple of emails from fellow bunny fiends.

One expressed interest in one of my all time favorite bunnies. It is an adorable figurine of a girl bunny dressed in a purple checked hat and dress, standing next to a wheelbarrow full of lavender stalks.

It’s called “Life is a Garden of Dreams” and is part of the 2000 Herb Garden series-the very last Blushing Bunnies series that Enesco produced.

The series consisted of only four pieces-3 figurines and a plaque. There was also a display backdrop…I don’t know where I’ve put mine, but here are some photos of the figurines.

Here are the three figures...



There is the lavender girl, #786624-“Life is a Garden of Dreams”



The chamomile girl by the white picket fence, #786616-“Gardening is Good for the Soul.”



And the thyme girl, reading on a bench. #786608-“Take Thyme to Savor What You’ve Sown.”



Then there is the plaque. #786632-“My Herb Garden.”



The bad news is-these don’t show up a lot. By the time they were released, most of the little gift shops had already stopped stocking My Blushing Bunnies. So you don’t have a lot of stores going to ebay to sell out old stock, or collectors who are selling theirs after losing interest in the collection.

Chances are, if a collector liked them enough to chase them down when they were available, and pay the comparatively high initial price of $20-$25 for them, you’re going to have to pry them out of their cold, dead hands.

The herb garden plaque is probably the easiest to find-it comes up quite a bit on ebay, and usually sells for a reasonable amount-around $10.

The others-it’s pure luck, but I do have a few tips that I will share with bunny fiends who contact me through my email, which is domino102@hotmail.com, and through my ebay account, which is allura77.

One thing I will tell everyone-don’t go crazy when you bid. Sellers will hate me for telling you this, but…oh well. They can consider it payback for all of the times I’ve paid WAY TOO MUCH!

The fact is-as soon as you get into a bidding war and run that rabbit up to $200, all of a sudden all of the people who have them stored away will think, “Hey! I sure could use some extra cash, and these silly bunny fiends have more money than sense! I think I’ll put mine on ebay too.”

Then you get to experience that sinking feeling you get when you’ve just dropped a couple of hundred bucks on a piece, only to see it sell for $9.99 a week later.

I’ve been there, done that. Too many times.

Now, another reader was puzzled by what I referred to as “color variations”.

When Enesco produces a figurine, they test out different color palates to see which looks the best. Often, the test figures are destroyed, but sometimes people have picked them up as a prototype. They weren’t made available to the general public, and that makes them very rare.

An example-this figurine is called “You are the Sunshine of my Life” and is a little girl rabbit dressed in a nightie, surrounded by two little stuffed bunnies.



The figure on the left is the prototype. The dress is pink. On the right is the actual figurine that was available to the general public. The dress is white.

Here’s the prototype…



And here’s the real figure…



You can see on the bottom that the prototype just has a sticker with a number, as opposed to the printed information on the figurine that was actually produced.



The prototype is probably the very rarest bunny I own. I have only seen it on ebay 1 time. I soon found myself in a bidding war…and, alas, I was defeated. By like $1.

I did get the last laugh, however. I did a search for Blushing Bunnies prototypes and found an obscure little online store that had one-for only $25. I snatched it up…and gloated. A lot.

It was only by chance that I happened to find out about it-I had the original, and noticed the color difference on an auction. There may be others that I haven’t seen-if you know of one, please share it with us!

Thanks so much for the emails, bunny fiends. It helps keep me motivated!

Melissa

A message for one of my contacts...

I received a very nice email from Julia, expressing her interest in my blog. However, when I tried to reply to her, I kept getting an error page from Ebay.

So either she didn't get the message and thinks I'm a rude person who was ignoring her email, or she got 20 copies of the same reply, in which case she might think I was a little disturbed.

Basically, I thanked her for her reply to my initial email. She expressed an interest in seeing my collection, and I told her that I planned to post lots of pictures on my blog-the collection is spread out all over the house and consists of over 150 different bunnies (I've never made an exact count for some reason.)

Here is a shot of the bunnies in my sofa shelf...

She also told me that she'd collected Cherished Teddies since 2004, and had only recently started with the bunnies. I took the opportunity to tell her about one of the figures in my collection that she might be interested in looking for.

In 1999, Enesco released a Cherished Teddies special edition-the "Circle of Love" Syndicated Catalog Exclusive, #666718.

It is a relatively large figurine, showing four of Priscilla Hillman's little critters holding hands in a circle. There's a Cherished Teddy, a Calico Kitten, a Blushing Bunny, and a Priscilla's Mouse Tail girl.

And a closeup of the bunny girl...

Now, for some reason, a lot of collectors aren't aware of this figurine. I think it's because it's considered technically to be a Cherished Teddies item, and there are so many of the teddies, it gets lost in the shuffle. I didn't know about it myself until I happened to find it in a local collectible shop.

I didn't buy it at the time, but later wanted to pick it up to finish out my collection. I had a devil of a time finding it, but finally found an online store where I bought it for $28.

I've seen them sell for much, much more on ebay, especially if the seller is astute enough to put it in the Blushing Bunnies or Calico Kittens category, instead of the teddies.

They only pop up maybe once or twice a year, but usually sell for quite a bit when they do. I think the highest bid I can remember was for over $200, but I've normally seen them sell for around $100.

Right now, there is a Buy it Now for $72.50 plus shipping at ebay. The item number is #320040080118.

I think, however, that you can still find them at certain online stores for less than that, if you use the description I provided. I did a search myself, to test my theory, and found this one-

http://www.edifyingspectacle.org/bestgift/cherished-teddies/circle-of-love.php

As you can see, the selling price is a lot less than the one on ebay. Of course, the problem is that there isn't a picture at the store, so you have to know exactly what it is you're looking for.

And sometimes, stores forget to update their webpages, so they may have sold out of what you're looking for and just not bothered to delete the page-I've found that to be especially true with the My Blushing Bunnies. So many times, I've found a rare bunny that I was looking for, only to contact the store and find that they no longer stocked them. So sorry.

But heck-I'd give it a shot. If you manage to get a good deal, it makes it worth it. And if nothing else, buy two and sell the other on ebay to the poor suckers that didn't do their homework like you did-heehee!

Anyway, thank you Julia, for your interest! I look forward to hearing from you and all of the other Bunny fiends out there!

Happy Hunting!

Melissa

Calling All Bunny Collectors...

Yesterday, I made the first post in my blog. It took me a few tries to get it looking the way I wanted, and I had to fix all of my typos, which took a little doing. But finally, it was done, and it was time to put it out there.

But, I thought to myself…what if no one sees it? It probably won’t show up on search engines, and even if other collectors go to blogspot, they probably wouldn’t be able to pick up on my little blog out of the thousands that are listed.

Then, I had a brainstorm. Ebay! That mecca of bunnydom…which oh-so-conveniently supplies contact information about its members.

So I went to ebay. The first thing I did was look up their rules regarding the contact of their members.

To sum it up, you can’t contact other members with the intent of selling something outside of ebay. No spam, no spoofs. You can’t put member information on another site. You can’t put people into an e-mail list without their permission. Ebay doesn’t regulate e-mails sent via their site, but they do make sure that said messages are free from virus and other nasty things.

Okay. I’m not selling anything. I just want to contact fellow collectors. I decided the best thing to do would be to visit the Blushing Bunnies auctions and see who was bidding, then use the ebay “Contact a Member” feature to invite them to my blog.

That way, the members I contacted would have the assurance that the message contained nothing dangerous to their computer, and they could also access MY information, including my feedback.

The only drawback to the member contact feature is that you are limited to a certain number of characters. I tried to make my requests as concise as possible. I chose about 15 members who were bidding on the bunnies and sent them this message-

“Hello,

I am contacting you because I noticed that you have purchased My Blushing Bunnies on ebay.

I have been a collector since 1995, and I believe I have the entire collection, except for a couple of shelves.

Frankly, I miss the hunt.

There are no online resources for bunny collectors that I've seen-no message boards or groups or anything like that.

I decided to start a blog about my collection. I'll be talking about different topics of interest to collectors, and sharing the stories and pictures that other collectors send me.

I'm not selling anything. Or infringing on copyright. I just want to talk about the collection I love so much with people who like it, too.

I have good feedback at ebay-I've been a member for a long time. I won't be sending you viruses or spam or stupid chain letters.

My blog is at a respectable, public site, blogspot, which can be found at www.blogger.com.

http://ruthsblushingbunnies.blogspot.com/

Thanks for your time.
Melissa”

I wrote down the user names of the people that I contacted, just so I would remember that I’d already contacted them. That way, I wouldn’t bother them with future invites if they weren’t interested. I didn’t want to offend or harass anyone at all.

I just knew the frustration of trying to find out more about the collection and not having a single online resource. No websites, message boards, collector’s clubs…and even Enesco wasn’t very helpful. I’d sent e-mails and even snail mails to the company, trying to find out different things about the collection, but never received a reply.

I was a little nervous, wondering about the response of the people I contacted. For all I knew, they might be offended; maybe they’d just completely ignore it.

I opened my inbox to find several replies from some of the people I contacted, and they were all quite positive about it, to my great relief and delight.

I’m looking forward to my future blogging, and hearing about other people’s Blushing Bunnies!

Melissa

My Blushing Bunnies by Priscilla Hillman-An Obsession in Resin...

Back in 1995, I discovered an Enesco Line called Calico Kittens, which was designed by Priscilla Hillman.

I loved them-they weren't quite like anything else that was out there.


They were well formed and painted, minutely detailed...I thought they were precious. It wasn't long before I'd amassed a small collection of the little cats, around 50 or so.

Now my mother, Ruth, had a collection too. She collected rabbits. In fact, she had a LOT of rabbits; they seemed to multiply like...well, rabbits. Big ones and small ones, made of everything from cotton to glass and resin. They only had one thing in common-they were UGLY.

You see, aesthetic beauty didn't matter to Mom- as long as the bunnies had two ears and were relatively rabbit-shaped, she would bring them home. She would hit the after- Easter sales, the Dollar Store, and fleamarkets, coming home with the most God-awful examples of lepus americanus the Third World has ever produced.

Here's an example of the type of thing she would bring home...

Scary, ain't it? I pointed out time and time again how hideous they were, only to be told that, "That's my collection, and I like them. Butt out."

Now, one day I had some extra money, and thought I would indulge my Calico Kitten obsession. I was looking over the selection at my local JC Penney's, when I saw a smaller display of bunny figurines that were very similar in style to my CK's.

I examined them closely. Soft, pretty colors, well proportioned, cute little outfits and poses...hmmm...could this possibly be the solution? Could this rid my home of the hundreds of cheap Taiwanese demon bunnies that were crammed onto every available shelf and table in our small brick ranch?

So, I took a shot and purchased My Blushing Bunnies "You're a Blessing From Above". It was a little girl rabbit in a peachy colored dress, holding a little white bunny in her arms.

When I took it home and gave it to Mom, she really didn't say all that much about it. I was persistant, though...everytime I got my paycheck, I would pick up another bunny in the series.

Soon, she cleared out her main display shelf, so that she could use it just to display her Blushing Bunnies. That was the beginning of the end...after a time, we had a big bunny sale, and those little ugly rabbits she'd hoarded for so long found new homes...or found themselves in the trashcan, where they truly belonged. Either way was fine with me.

So we started collecting the My Blushing Bunny line in earnest. I continued to shop at local stores, but we also found online resources, including ebay, Etc Shop, The Spinning Wheel, and others.

We were very disappointed when the line was discontinued after only five years, but comforted ourselves with the thought that there were still plenty of rabbits we didn't have, and we could continue to collect them.

The stores stopped stocking them. Online retailers reduced their prices and cleared their shelves. Our main resource became ebay, and we soon became deadly snipers, going all the way to get the bunnies to finish our collection.

At this point, I believe we have them all, with the exception of a couple of display shelves. We have the cold cast resin figures, rare prototypes, the ceramics, the stuffed...we have the advertising button, the packet of seeds, the ornaments, the pin and earring set.

We've got the puzzle, the cross stitch book...Christmas, Halloween, Easter, general figurines, color variations. Music boxes-check. Spice jars...yep. The large paper mache-every single one.

Now that our quest has come to an end, we miss the thrill a lot. We're hoping by starting this blog, we can reach out to other collectors of this wonderful line. If there is enough interest in the blog, I may consider sponsering an online bulletin board, so that we could talk about our collections.

Anyone have a story to tell about their own collecting? Or have a rare find to gloat about, or maybe some pictures to share? E-mail them to me at domino102@hotmail.com and I will share them on my blog.

I will also be posting in the future about different BB related topics, such as color variations, hard to find bunnies, auction advice...basically, whatever pops into my head. I will also give a heads up via email if I come across a bunny that someone is looking for.

I'm making no profit from this blog, and all copyrights belong to Enesco and that brilliant artist, Priscilla Hillman. All pictures I post are my own or belong to someone who has emailed them to me, giving permission to share them.

I won't be advertising or posting for sale lists-if some one does want to contact me with bunnies to sell, I must encourage them to sell through a reputable online auction like ebay, which will provide at least some protection to both buyer and seller.

Please feel free to comment on any topic in the guestbook, or email me at anytime!

Happy hunting!

Ruth and Melissa