Remembering Ms. Bea

Anyone that comes to visit here at the old Southern Ooaks knows that I have temporarily closed my Etsy shoppe. My away notice is that were are doing some landscaping....get it...Southern Ooaks...makes you think of trees....landscaping.....HAHA...ok, well let's just move on then. ^_^  I actually have it closed because of the Trim-A-Tree Christmas event being held here in Foley until the 22nd of this month. It seems though that even with my shoppe being closed that I am getting quite a few "window" shoppers and that is a gooood thing. I love everyone that comes to shop or even just to browse. In the conversations that I have been sent, it seems that there is a big interest in my Dust Bunnies and Rabbits. Thankfully a few orders have already been placed for after the first of the year....YEAH!!! In conversing with one of my sweet shoppers, I told her about my garden bunnies. It was a series I was going to start for my Mom. She loved rabbits...although, I think over the years they had all multiplied to a bit more than she had planned. The last Christmas we were all together (2006) she asked if I would make her a rabbit. I had made her a witchie poo for Halloween to sit on a table where she could see it and I think that started something...which I so didn't mind. She was my Mom after all. She said that she wanted it dressed and to look as if she had been in a vegetable garden. As with the Santa I did for my Daddy, my Mom only got to see the sculpted head of her rabbit and some of the vintage fabrics I had picked out to make her clothes with. I put the piece on hold after their health went down so quickly and then to lose them both in early 2007 was just more than I could handle and working on "her" rabbit was just to hard for me. After some time went by I decided that I wanted to finish the piece and actually start a garden series of rabbits. So began the completion of MS. BEA (named after my Mom...her middle name which seemed to just fit this piece so well)

Ms. Bea is one of my larger ooaks. She stands at a hair over 16 1/2 inches tall. She has a strong wire armature that is covered in a stuffed soft body. Her head, hands and feet were all hand sculpted out of clay...baked and then painted using acrylic paints.

All the fabrics used in this piece were vintage. Discovered in an old trunk at an estate sale...what a find!! The lace was some of my grandmothers along with the old quilt piece I used for her apron.

Ms. Bea even has pantaloons. We don't want her bending over to pull the carrots up out of the ground and a big wind come swooshing past...now DO WE?

Apparently, Ms. Bea had a beauty of a crop that year. Scrumptious carrots...lovely heads of lettuce...radishes and even some asparagus. She even found a few speckled eggs to add to her bounty. All of these are some of my hand sculpted veggies placed in a real basket.

I had a design to make a Mr. Walter (my Daddy's middle name) to go with Ms. Bea in the garden. I haven't sculpted him as of yet but I do believe after the Holidays that I'm going to. I'm going to redesign a smaller version of the "Garden Series" and even add a few more cute wabbits to offer for the Bunny/Rabbit collectors that may just happen to wander past my shoppe.

Here's to remembering Ms. Bea....may there be a garden of plenty and all the rabbits you can hug.

Until next time.......HUGS, Regi