"They go to Africa quite a bit and they wanted to remember their time there."
He said it took about three-and-a-half months to build the sculpture, which is made of a steel frame and recycled corrugated iron sheets.
Once he figured out the framework and cladding, he used 10,000 rivets to complete the work.
"It gets a bit laborious."
The red iron was recycled and he traded some beers for the rest of the sheets from a man who was about to take them to the scrap yard.
Crawford often uses stainless steel, wood and taxidermy for his sculptures and said this piece harked back to his first works. "This is a bit different to what I do now."
The giraffe was delivered to the clients' property, to go in their entertaining area. Nigel Hargreaves from McAuley's Transport came to pick up the sculpture.
He said he had transported some strange stuff before but never a giraffe.
Crawford said the couple had seen some stages of its creation but not the final sculpture.
"It's probably going to be a surprise." Crawford said that, now the work was complete, he had a show in Sydney and two overseas commissioned works to keep him busy for the rest of the year.
The plumber turned sculptor has a large body of work that has gained recognition by prominent New Zealand art patrons such as Sir James Wallace.
Sir James started the Wallace Arts Awards, the largest art awards competition in New Zealand. He recently bought a piece of Crawford's art for his private collection.
The piece was a hare, half taxidermy and half made out of guns.
