Giant Chocolate Easter Bunny

This story landed in my mailbox this week and I just had to share it with you.

I met Winnie and Mark from Crafty Corner a couple of years back. When they first started Crafty Corner, Winnie mentioned to me that it was a bit of a "sideline" for them. Two years later it has turned into a monster! Literally.

These two intrepid personalities started with recycle crafts, and then branched into everything else. There is not a project they will not tackle.

This year they were approached by Duracell to produce the world's largest solid chocolate Easter bunny for the Guiness Book Of Records. This is a brief that would have left me cold. The Crafty Corner team took it on, and completed the ambitious project in a few short days.

The giant bunny is 3,82 meters high, and weighs 3,014 tons. How did they do it?

"Our first challenge was to find a supplier who would supply 3 tons of chocolate at short notice. Through our network of contacts, Chris from Gold Reef Chocolates came to the rescue, and before we knew it, we were flooded under a mountain of chocolate.

The chocolate came in 400g slabs, and to make a giant chocolate bunny with these would have been virtually impossible. Enter Chris. We asked Chris and his team at Gold Reef Chocolates to rescue us. The slabs were melted into solid bricks weighing in at 6,5kg each and individually packaged by Gold Reef Chocolates in strict accordance with our country’s health regulations, giving us something we could really work with.

With the chocolate sorted, Mark Fruhauf set about designing a giant chocolate bunny that would be solid, as well as meet the strict regulations in order for this to be recognized as an official world record. Our sculptor created an internal steel frame to provide extra stability for safety’s sake, after all, if this toppled over, it would bring a whole new meaning to the term “death by chocolate!”

With a solid design and a mountain of chocolate to work with, the Crafty Corner team set about creating a giant mound of chocolate. As the giant bunny had to be solid, we had to physically melt the blocks with a blowtorch and stick them together. Once we had completed a very rough “robot” looking bunny from the blocks weighing about 2.5 tons, the sculpting team then set about shaping the blocks. As we sculpted, we collected the flying chips and added them to trays of melted chocolate to make up a chocolate “plaster paste” which was then used to form the detail of the bunny. This process allowed us to add the additional 500Kg that was what we needed to make the 3014kg total in the end.

The entire process took from Monday morning 15th April 2010 to Thursday when Duracell gave the sign off at 16:00 18th March 2010.

Almost lost in the entire story is how the entire bunny is resting on a tiny scale supplied by Scale Tronic Services that is being used to display the final weight to the public and for our record keepers.

We all had a blast and kept each other awake with jokes, loads or moral support and WATER. Now all that remains to be seen is…. what shall we do next?"

The Duracell Easter Bunny is currently on display at Sandton City in the fountain court until 27 March 2010. Pop in an have a look at this record breaking bunny.

Well done Crafty Corner! You guys never cease to amaze and astound!

www.craftycorner.co.za

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

Contemporary Dyecraft

The journey of this book began on 2001, when I began writing the first draft. It took me five months to lay down the first copy. I did my research in the stores. I walked into the craft section of every bookstore I went into and picked up all the books by local publishers. The Metz Press books all had a certain look and feel in my hands and I decided that this was the publisher for me.

I then spent some years trying to get hold of the publisher. I sent volleys of e-mails and heard nothing back from Metz.

On a level I gave up and moved on to other focusses. After all, you cannot kill all of your time on one thing.

Then, in 2007 I went to Cape Town to teach at Keen On Crafts with Craftwise Magazine. I had a free session where I could choose to do any craft that I wanted to and I decided to do embroidery. The teacher was a wonderful lady called Fransie Snyman. She asked me if I was not interested in writing a book, since I knew so much about my medium. I told her about my dream to publish. She told me that she had written a book and could put me in touch with her publisher, Metz Press.

I sent a volley of e-mails to the address she gave me, and heard nothing.

Six months later I went to the Keen On Crafts with Craftwise Magazine event in Pretoria. A friendly blonde lady walked up to me, and introduced herself as Wilsia Metz. Her sister Fransie, had told her all about me. She had signed up for my class.

From there things have flowed and Contemporary Dyecraft is almost a reality. It will be available in stores from January 2010!

My advice to aspiring writers : Never give up.