Laura's birthday

Happy Birthday Laura!

This post is partly to say that, partly to brag and mostly to put an end to Laura's misery.

I've been dropping hints to Laura since before Christmas that I was working on a present for her. Originally as a Christmas present, but when I missed that deadline I switched my focus to her birthday, which fortunately is, well today. I technically am not going to make that either, the package is still in transit, but I got it on the courier before the day, so that's got to count for something.

The present was in 3 parts:

• Two sculptures in an NZ made polymer clay called DuKit, think Fimo or Sculpey, but much, much better, at least for my purposes.
  The Sculptures I titled "True Love" and NinjaGirl", see individual post where I explain their inspiration and construction, and weasel out of the deficiencies in my skill as a sculptor.
  
  Sculpting is something I love, but haven't done much of recently for a variety of reasons. Since late last year the itch to do some has been growing and ideas for figurines have been coming to me.
  These two were inspired by comments made in Laura and my email conversations.
  As you can see, I like doing what amount to caricatures and although I would like to try my hand at more realism, capturing character in a fun and amusing way is a skill all of its own. I'm not where I want to be in that yet, but these sculptures restored my faith that I might be able to get there if I keep at it.
  
• Some lollies which I think are unique to NZ. Oh, that's candy to Americans and sweets in the UK.

The research into the lollies was interesting. In a global economy it's hard to be sure what is unique to, or originated in, NZ and especially hard to differentiate between Australia and New Zealand. I'm sure I've claimed a few things I shouldn't have.
One big surprise was Minties. I thought they were an English lolly that had migrated here, but apparently they started here. A taxonomy of confectionery would be an interesting study.
The final list of lollies was:

• Minties
• 2 x Picnic bars
• 2 x Crunchie bars
• 2 x flake bars (original yucky milk chocolate, not the white or dark chocolate versions)
• 2 x Pinky bars
• 2 x Bounty bars
  

The contents of the package looked like this before it was packed.









"True Love" is in the striped box, but you can see "NinjaGirl" still. She kind of grew as I made her and didn't fit in the same sized box as "True Love" when she was finished.


Oh, and a ton of bubble wrap.