How the Bunny Factory Came to Be - A Makersville Story

Pardon me while I wax philosophically.

When does any story begin? In the retelling of something that has happened over a period of time where do you start? I will choose to start the story of How the Bunny Factory Came to Be with the making of tigers. Please understand that there is much that came before that permitted the Bunny Factory to be realized.

The Year of the Tiger

It was 2022. I was asked to make membership baskets for the new members of the Long Beach - Qingdao Association (LBQA), a Sister City of Long Beach of which I am a longtime member. Why I ended up in the LBQA is a different story for a different day. I made four tigers that year. I intended to put tails, but ran out of time. Still, I think they looked like tigers... what do you think?

The Year of the Bunny

It was 2023. I was not asked to make membership baskets, but I wanted to make bunnies to donate to the LBQA luncheon. I am a Maker (someone who make things), engaged in the Maker Movement and understanding of and believing in the power of being part of making things. It is a movement started by Dale Dougherty, the editor of Make: Magazine and author of technical books (among other things). Here is his TED Talk about the Maker movement.

That year, I donated about 16 bunnies and a bunny making party in the Makersville studio in Shoreline Village to the LBQA event at Long Beach City College. We gave the bunnies to the volunteers. They LOVED them!

I was so happy that the high school students loved my bunnies. It's nice when something you make is appreciated, and a stuffed bunny is not something required or even useful in the usual context.

I made Maritime themed bunnies for the Makersville Services Maritime Symposium in April.

Later I hosted the bunny making class for four accompanied 10-year-olds. It was awesome!

Then I applied for and got some grants to support classes in Bunny Making from the Arts Council for Long Beach and the Port of Long Beach. This permitted us to have a few high school and college aged employees join in the bunny making. We made bunnies for a public holiday toy giveaway event that was being hosted by Centro CHA that year.

The Year of the Dragon

It is 2024, the Year of the Dragon. The concept of membership baskets has faded, but still I am making bunnies.

For this year's event, we made bunnies for the Makersville 'store' at the Dreamers Market at the Long Beach - Qingdao Association's Lunar New Year event at the mall on 2nd and PCH. I worked on dragons, but kept forgetting to add the legs. I made two snakes. We added creative LEGO bunny making and dragon making experiences. There was paper lantern making.

It was AWESOME!

I'd made about thirty bunnies. I asked many people I knew - How do I make it more culturally relevant? Then a lightning bolt of an idea - Make them red! I had some really beautiful red fabric I'd picked up from the Sew Vac store on Clark, when I was making masks.

Realizing the Value of your Work

In the United States, 'product owners' have to contend with the the cost of labor and materials, compounded with the anticipation of sales, finding the market for their products.

When you are the product owner, factory worker, designer, what do you charge? I decided on $20 for the not culturally relevant bunnies and $30 for the red bunnies.

We sold two red bunnies for $30 each at the event at the 2nd and PCH mall. Success!

Two Bunnies of 30 is 6% of Production Sold
To most factory owners, 6% of produced goods sold is a very poor return. To a Maker who makes Handmade Bunnies the optics are different. The result is still the same. There were 28 unsold bunnies. Several went to volunteers as thank you gifts, along with certificates from the Sister Cities of Long Beach. The volunteers loved them the previous year, so I thought they would love them this year. I believe they did.

What do You Do with Your Unsold Goodies?

This is a question that faces every retail operation, every factory owner, every product owner. For us, it was "What do you do with your unsold bunnies?" Luckily for us, we had a sponsored Rube Goldberg competition planned in March, and we gave away all the remaining bunnies there, as well as other bunnies we prepared for the event. We paid for the work in preparing the bunnies with grant funds... Mental note: Get more sponsors for the next year, so that other key roles can be paid.

The bunnies were heavily featured on event day. The snakes were also in demand, although there were only two.

More Bunnies Needed!

For the Los Angeles Maker Faire and the City of STEM combined event on April 6th, I had planned a Rube Goldberg experience, with a 'Bunny Factory' experience. Different people would sew arms, legs, heads to bodies, ears, ears to heads and backs to fronts. They would do this because they were also learning to use the sewing machine.

The bunnies made would be awarded to the participants in the Rube Goldberg space.

So I pre-sewed a few and we expected to have more. However, I realized that there was a need for additional items that could be earned. We selected buttons as those items.

Here's the recap video of those presentations.

Luckily for me, one individual came just for the bunnies and will make more when she goes home. I realized that for those of us who live in the US, we want to be able to have control. The act of making something is special, and not necessarily done in quantity. I suppose that there are some reading this who would say "I could have told you that". Some of us may know something mentally, but really still want to feel it. That one individual is making a bunny factory of her own.

So now there are two handmade bunny factories in the world. There may be others.

The Value of the Bunny Factory

I realize that the Bunny Factory has become part of my life story. It is part of my identity. I may move on from making bunnies, and I may make different bunnies and bunny themed items. It is coincidental that I was born in the year of the Rabbit. I think it is. I think I would like bunnies regardless of what year I was born in.

The Bunny Factory is the concept of value here, not the bunnies themselves. It is an opportunity to feel the value of your personal time; to learn a new skill; to take pride in making something with permission to adjust the pattern and design; to experiment with marketability of your products; to gather community around making bunnies; and to provide value to sponsors and grantors through recognition at events.

I also realize that there is enough there for me to start a new YouTube channel, Instagram and facebook page on the Bunny Factory... I do many things, most are documented on my Squigglemom and Friends channel. The Bunny Factory is a focused channel. We like focus, it's just hard for some of us.

Thanks for reading. You can follow the exploits of the Bunny Factory and the Bunny Makers in the Bunny Factory on our social media, especially on our new YouTube channel, @BunnyFactoryLB

Start your own Bunny Factory

To make your first take-home bunny and start your own Bunny Factory and participate in a shared environment for skills learning while being in control of your own factory, production, schedule and goals, join us at camps around the Los Angeles area during the summer, including at our Makersville Maker Space in Shoreline Village in Long Beach. Individuals are parent or guardian assisted at our Makersville Maker Space in Long Beach. Register Here on Eventbrite.

Creating the Bunny Factory has been an incredible experience for me personally. It would not have happened if we didn't have incremental support from our sponsors: Many thanks to the Port of Long Beach and the Arts Council for Long Beach for their sponsorships of our events.

I hope you enjoyed the read, and will visit us to learn machine sewing while making your first bunny. You will probably want to keep it. Maybe you'll never have a micro factory of your own. I realize I should have kept a couple of the bunnies for my reference and sharing at the Makersville studio. I suppose I can always make more!

We are often asked to bring our activities to schools, libraries, community centers and other events or even to host our own events. Funding is always a consideration. If you would like to contribute to this or any Makersville project, please consider making a tax deductible donation to Makersville at http://makersvilleservices.org. If you would like to have us at your location, we have a number of financial models to support our presence at your location! Some take more advance planning than others: Grantwriting, fun raising, pay per class. We also enjoy creating customized location-specific productions. Email: Patricia@makersvilleservices.org