Dragon Eggs (Craft Not Just for Kids)

Long autumn and winter evenings are near which means I come up with new art projects for the kids. These Dragon Eggs are super fun to make, it's a great activity for both boys and girls and craftsy adults as well.

If your children like to play with clay, make these original Dragon Eggs with them! You won't get any dragon babies hatching but you'll have fun making the eggs. Even though the eggs on the photos have a lot of shiny stones, you can use many other things for decoration - jewelry chains, sequins, fabric decoration, shells and sand or you can event paint them.

The only supply that you'll need for sure is the air-dry clay. You can buy some or make it at home from just 3 ingredients, the tutorial is here. And if you have some clay left, you can make this Flower Garland.

1. Air-dry clay - you can make it with this tutorial
2. aluminum foil
3. decoration: cabachons, beads, shells, jewelry chains, sequins, glitter, sand...
4. other: modelling tools, jewelry pliers...

If you don't want to buy the clay, making it at home is very easy. I made if from double amount of that indicated in the tutorial and we made 7 eggs of different size from it. I dyed each piece with powder food coloring to the shade I liked. I didn't blend some of the coloring completely because I liked the combination of shades.

If you don't use some of the clay, wrap it well in an aluminum foil or any other impermeable foil, it lasts long and you can use it for other project, here are some more ideas.

Make the core of the egg from aluminum foil. Scrunch some foil up in your hands into a more or less round shape. The more it resembles an egg, the better. You could make the eggs without aluminum foil, however, the aluminum core helps to prevent excess deformation when you press decorations into the egg and also, the eggs don't dry as long as those made completely from clay.

Press the clay flat with your hands, the layer should be at least 1 cm/0.4 in thick. A bit more is even better. Place the aluminum core on this clay "pancake".

Wrap the clay around the core.

Roll the egg a little to give it a smoother surface. Or not, if you want your dragon egg wrinkled.

I recommend placing the eggs on a plate which you can turn.

Now it's up to you. Decorate the eggs with anything you like, here are a few of my ideas. Press every piece of decoration into the clay (that's why we need to make the layer thick enough) or they will fall off when the egg dries. You can glue on whatever falls off but it won't look the same.

Here's how I make scaly eggs. I use the tip from a cake decorating bag with round tip and I press it lightly into the egg shell.

Jewelry chains make for an interesting steampunk decoration. Place them little by little, pressing each piece into the clay with a thin wooden stick or the handle of a spoon.

Small beads need to be pressed in as well.

Scales can also be made with cake decorating tools, this one is a half-circle.

Place the finished eggs in a safe place to dry. The time needed for drying depends on three things: 1. Eggs with aluminum core need less time to dry, 2. Larger eggs need more time, 3. Thicker clay layers need longer time, too. An egg that fits into an average hand and a layer of clay around 2 cm/just under 1 in needs about 3 days to dry properly.

If the decoration allows it, put the egg on its side for a day so the bottom dries well.

If any of the decorations falls off, I recommend gluing it with fast-drying glue.