Since its inception in 2004, Crafty Corner has grown from a part-time, one-woman show, to a fulltime business with a number of employees servicing a wide range of clients with varying and diverse needs.

Starting as a simple craft related resource database, Crafty Corner has grown phenomenally over the years. Apart from being a free craft resource, we also provide stunning, handmade gifts to the public and to numerous corporate clients, as well as running craft workshops and courses from our studio and craft programs at schools.

Winnie studied interior decorating and has been involved in the crafting industry ever since. She has a wide grasp of craft skills, is an expert tutor and has an eye that misses no detail

Mark is a technical and logistics specialist. A resin caster and mould maker, he has spent years honing his skills as an experienced craftier, in addition to being an internet whiz and running his own web servers.

Giant Chocolate Easter Bunny, Guinness World Record

It took Crafty Corner 3 days to help Duracell break the Guinness World Record for the World’s largest solid chocolate Easter Bunny.
Weighing in at 3,014 tons and measuring 3,82 meters high, Crafty Corner broke the previous Guinness World record by far!

Building the Worlds largest solid chocolate rabbit meant a number of challenges. Our first challenge was to find a supplier who could supply 3 tons of chocolate at very short notice. Through our network of contacts, Gold Reef Chocolates came to the rescue, and before we knew it, we were flooded under a giant mountain of chocolate, over 3000kg of the stuff!

The chocolate came in 400g slabs, and to make a giant chocolate bunny with these would have been virtually impossible. Our first task was to melt the small slabs into bigger slabs that we could work with. We brought in the the team at Gold Reef Chocolates to help us. They melted the slabs into solid bricks weighing in at 6,5kg each and individually packaged in strict accordance with our country’s health regulations, giving us something we could really work with.

While this was happening, Mark Fruhauf from Crafty Corner 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. Chocolate is quite brittle, and this was quite a tricky process, as the rabbit needed to be a replica of the famous Duracell bunny everyone knows so well, as well as have the strength needed to stand on its own, after all, if this toppled over, it would bring a whole new meaning to the term “Death by chocolate!”.

First National Bank

Crafty Corner was commissioned by 3rd House who are an agency that works with First National Bank to assist them with various projects such as making displays. We were asked to make a tree for one of their internal events. Our brief was to create a tree from wood about 2m tall and proportionally wide from wood strong enough to hand 500 notes from the staff. This was further complicated by the face we would have to assemble the tree inside their offices in bank city Johannesburg.

Taking up the challenge Crafty Corner designed a tree using a flat pack assembly system. Making use of a big CNC machine, at Made in Workshop, we proceeded to bring our creation to life. The design of the tree was not the iconic FNB tree but one of our own creations which we cut out of various thicknesses of wood. These cut out pieces were then carefully laminated together to form the various components of the tree. We made up the base, trunk and branches into separate sections so that we could easily breakdown move and re-assemble quickly at any location. The other advantage of this style of building is that we were not restricted by doorways or lifts, this had to be installed on the 4th floor of FNB building. Taking a total of 7 days we cut, sanded, glued, delivered and –re-assembled the tree in its new home at FNB. The final size of the tree was 2.1m tall, from branch to branch tip it was 1.9m wide and had a base of 1.6m in diameter weighing a total of about 75Kg

Fundi

Is a company involved in the financial side of the educational sector commissioned a model of Mt Everest. In true Crafty Corner sty this was not a project we would shy away from coming in at 2m by 2m by a little over 1.2 meters tall and weighing in at near 80 Kg. This model of Mt Everest was made primarily with paper balls, paper mache and finished off in a hard coat of dental stone. The scale is approximately 1:10 000 000

St Gobain

For the international building materials competition in Dubai St Gobain commissioned a mould from crafty corner of the African black rhino. This was to be used on the final stage of the design portion of the competition relating to interior construction materials. The mould was created by sculpting a relief rhino head, work done by W Mchnrey owner of Upcycle Creative, which was then converted into a mould with fiberglass and the final product made from dental stone manufactured by one of the divisions of St Gobain.

Investec

Though our sister company Upcycle they have been working on 5000 glasses for Investec. These glasses are hand cut from discarded wine bottles, cut, polished into amazing glasses and finally sandblasted with their logo and unique saying.
December 2015

With the assistance of Investec’s agents, we have set out to source 5 000 used wine bottles. These will then be hand cut into glasses to be used in the Investec canteen. The bottles will be sandblasted with Investec’s logo as well as their by-line. The purpose and requirement for this project is to upcycle the wine bottles into drinking glasses, while creating an opportunity to involve community members in the project.