I'm lost on this one... He said he wants a cake for the Chinese New year, the year of the rabbit.. something cute, but with only a small budget. I don't want to do an easter type of rabbit though. He's a small business Neighbor of mine that runs a salon and I know that this good deed will go far. We take care of each other like that!

I googled the year of the rabbit and saw a few cute drawings, but I kind of like the idea of a different kind of cake, not a sheet cake with a drawing...

Bring it on!

do a 3d rabbit. body out of cake, head could be cake or rice cereal and ears out of gumpaste on skewers.

What about a year of the rabbit piggy bank- something similar to this:
http://www.asianideas.com/happyrabbitfamily.html
Or something simple like this image on a small round:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.amoy.co.uk/images/horoscopes/rabbit.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.amoy.co.uk/rabbit.html&usg=__f6W3FHYqV9RrEn3X9lNNEIYZN_s=&h=149&w=158&sz=27&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=L8HYh43zv0HE9M:&tbnh=119&tbnw=126&ei=QjNETY38FtLAgQeci-nGAQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dyear%2Bof%2Bthe%2Brabbit%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1W1SNYX%26biw%3D1276%26bih%3D576%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=910&vpy=362&dur=2824&hovh=119&hovw=126&tx=83&ty=95&oei=QjNETY38FtLAgQeci-nGAQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:21,s:0
Or this one with the rabbit highlighted somehow:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_r8GjWqN6cvM/TGp_DNbE8rI/AAAAAAAAMJw/WGL8jNInsyk/s320/Chinese%2BZodiac.jpg&imgrefurl=http://howtoraj.blogspot.com/2010_07_24_archive.html&usg=__jRxvjgIehLJoY-AAOPsgh8sYSCo=&h=280&w=283&sz=25&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=xwQBbNMkoWS1KM:&tbnh=133&tbnw=134&ei=QjNETY38FtLAgQeci-nGAQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dyear%2Bof%2Bthe%2Brabbit%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1W1SNYX%26biw%3D1276%26bih%3D576%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=524&vpy=96&dur=686&hovh=223&hovw=226&tx=125&ty=120&oei=QjNETY38FtLAgQeci-nGAQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0

I recently bought a wooden chinese cookie mold of a koi fish. It was a part of a series of molds, one for each animal that represents that chinese years. They do have the rabbit at this link for very cheap. Unfortunately you can't really see what it will look like. But see the pic below to get an idea of what they're like based on my koi cookies. You could easily use this to mold gumpaste or fondant to adhere around teh sides of a round or square cake.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00018U1EG/?tag=cakecentral-20



These cookies were a good size, maybe 3" from head to tail.

Just found a link to the chines rabbit mold that does have a picture you can see.

http://www.mvtradingco.com/moon-cookie-mold-rabbit-shape.html