About

A bit of BunnyBear history…

Like many other collectors it started with a glorious, glossy catalog that I received in the mail in the mid 1980′s and like many others I had to be satisfied with just that catalog. Unable to afford the actual doll, I cut out a full page spread of then Pleasant Company’s Samantha, and placed her in a scrapbook.

More than a decade later my boyfriend and I came across an American Girl display in a gift shop. I “introduced” Samantha to my boyfriend and told him my catalog story. More than a year later, as solace after a particularly difficult day at work, my boyfriend (then fiance), brought Samantha home for me.

Already an avid seamstress, sewing for Samantha came naturally. From the first outfit I made, Dorothy’s gingham from The Wizard of Oz, I was hooked. At the urging of family and friends, I started selling my outfits on eBay in August of 1999. I purchased Kit to round out my “model” options and BunnyBear was born.

I happily spent upwards of 16 hours creating each one of a kind offering for my customers. I searched online, in book stores and family basements for historic design support. I purchased vintage snaps by the box and buttons by the pound. I was having a great time.

Occasionally I would get a question or comment asking if I would sell the pattern for a particular outfit. Wanting to protect the OOAK feature of my work, my response was always sorry, no. In the summer of 2006, fiance then husband, and I had our first child. I had to stop producing BunnyBear outfits in favor of sleep. In 3AM conversations husband urged me to reconsider offering my patterns to customers. His reasoned that while I would no longer have the time to make outfit after outfit, I could find time to make one outfit here and there. I worked for almost two years designing my first offerings and in August of 2008 BunnyBear reopened its “doors”.