Make a Pretend Dragon Egg
Dragon Eggs?
Out of the misty, dark, murky recesses of the past come dragon eggs.
Okay, these are not real dragon eggs. In fact, dragons are not even real. But these are a fun project that you can make at home.
It’s really fairly easy to make but it will definitely be a project for adults and kids to work on together. This is not one just for kids.
This idea comes from someone named “Kaptin Scarlet.” I tried to go to his website but the site was down so I’m not going to put a link here.
You will start with egg blowing and then instead of just painting the blown egg, make it in to a fantastic looking dragon’s egg in a few minutes with a bit of hot melt glue gun glue and some paint.
That’s it, it couldn’t really be simpler than that! Here are the complete instructions.
You will have to travel to far-off landscapes of fantasy and battle fierce foes in order to recover one of these priceless eggs.
You may have to risk your life and spend all the money you have but it will be worth it all.
Look at the veins and the exotic textures of the of the eggs. Look at the combination of leathery flesh and metallic tones.
Facing near certain death to obtain a prize of dubious worth is always a fun way to spend an afternoon.
Just kidding. Here are some easy instructions to make one from things you have around your house.
What you’ll need:
- One regular chicken egg (or larger egg would work even better if you can get one.) A duck, goose or even ostrich would work great.
- Glue gun and a small amount of hot melt glue
- Spray paint, any color will do, but black, red, green, gold or silver are the best
- a little bit of acrylic paint, for the distressing (black or dark brown)
Step 1: Make a Hole in Both Ends of the Egg
You are going to remove the insides of the egg but don’t worry about the waste, there doesn’t have to be any. Once you have blown the eggs, you can always make scramble or an omelet from the contents of the egg.
Wash the egg quickly in cold, slightly soapy water.
Have an adult carefully make a hole in one end of the egg. This must be done by an adult. Making the hole is not as easy as it sounds. If you have a Dremmel , or other miniature drills, this should present no problem. But for when using a sharp knife, the egg is surprisingly hard, and being… well, an egg shell, is also quite brittle.
Step 2:Blow the Egg
Now it’s time to blow the egg white and yolk out of the hole. The trick is to blow hard (depending on the size of the hole) while holding the egg gently, this can be tricky. It might also help to poke a cocktail stick into the egg first and wiggle it about a bit so as to break the yolk sack, because that is one tough thing to blow out of a small hole.
The blowing part is a good job to get the kids to do as long as they are careful.
Collect the white and yolk in a bowl, and save for later to make into a scrambled egg.
Once all the egg white and yolk is out, run the egg under the cold tap to clean out the inside as much as possible. If you can, it might be worth filling your mouth with water and blowing that through the egg. You don’t want it getting smelly.
Step 3Attach a Cocktail Stick to the Egg
As with many model making projects, the problem of how to hold the work piece while you paint it and work on it is overcome by attaching a small sacrificial handle.
An adult should some hot glue on the end of a cocktail stick (or a bamboo shish kabob skewer) and gently push it into the egg at one end so that most of it sticks out. Hold the stick until it is set and add a little bit more glue on the outside if necessary.
You must still handle the egg with care, but this simple handle will make all the difference.
Step 4:Draw Features on the Egg with Glue
With a regular painted egg, at this point, you would just start painting. However, this is one of the steps that makes this a cool Dragon’s Egg.
Instead of painting the egg right away, draw some features on it with the hot melt glue gun. Of course you can do any pattern you like. Variety and invention is the key to making your dragon’s egg original. But here is how to do the ones like the picture.
First: Draw loops round the upper half of the egg, while rotating it.
Second: Join the tops of these loops to the top tip of the egg with more or less straight lines.
Third: Join the bottom of each of the loops to the bottom tip of the egg (right by the cocktail stick) with wavy lines.
Step 5:Spray the Dragon’s Egg
It is now a Dragon’s Egg and you must spray it or otherwise color it appropriately.
A lot of colors would work. I have a number of old cans of spray paint and so I chose black (with a red glow at the bottom), half and half gold and silver, and a really rich green.
If you don’t have spray paint then any water proof paint will do, Latex paint, or even nail polish, (ASK THE OWNER of the nail polish first, that stuff can be expensive!)
You could try almost any color. I believe that Dragon’s Eggs of almost any real colr have been described and I’m sure there are a few out there with imaginary colours!
Use the edge of a corrugated cardboard box, the prong in the middle of the egg box, some flower arranging foam, or a large bit of Blu Tak to pop the other end of the cocktail stick in to hold the egg while it dries. (how easy is that?!)
Step 6:Distress the Dragon’s Egg
Now you should really distress your Dragon’s Egg a bit. After all Dragon’s Eggs have been known to be 1000’s of years old.
Like all distressing, all you have to do is paint a bit of grime on and wipe it off so that it goes in all the crevices, which of course you have just made using the glue gun.
Paint on black acrylic paint (or other contrasting colour) and then while it is still wet, wipe it off.
Step 7:Add surface highlights
This is an optional step. However, adding these last few details is great fun and makes the Dragon’s Egg look really special. I used gold rubbing paste (Rub n Buff), Gold Finger (UK) but you could use a little contrasting paint on the finger tip or a luminous gel pen, for example.
Step 8:Cut off Cocktail Stick Handle
Carefully cut off the cocktail stick as close as possible to the base.
Either use a strong pair of kitchen scissors or better still a pair of wire cutters (blades meet rather than shear).
Do not rest the Dragon’s Egg on anything and use force that could translate to the Dragon’s Egg itself, when cutting off the stick.
If you want you could place the cocktail stick in a vice and hacksaw it through carefully.
Step 9:Admire you Dragon’s Egg
To make a stand for it paint a bottle cap black, cut down a 35mm film tub (to about half an inch, or get some card board and cut out some very nice stands like these that has been specially designed for this egg.
You can paint it or cover it with beautiful paper that makes the egg look even more special becuase if your really did have anything that cool wouldn’t you want it displayed in a cool way? Take a look at these shapes and you can paint them with the leftover paint from your project or you can get your own ideas on how to make them
I hope that you will really enjoy this project and that is will bring a lot of fun to your whole family.
