DIY Dragon Eggs (For Rainy Days, Parties, and Just Because)

Recently my oldest son and his friends have gotten super into dragons. They’ve been reading the Wings of Fire series by Tui T. Sutherland (a great read for your kids by the way), and now all they talk about is dragons. I don’t know if this is a larger cultural thing (I’m too old to know what’s relevant to kids these days) or just my son and his friends, but dragon-related things are in around here. 

So when the opportunity to find a dragon-related project comes up, I’m all over it. What I found was a great rainy day activity making dragon eggs. While I’m not super artsy (or arts-and-crafts-y) myself, this was an easy project to do and comes out looking pretty darn cool. 

To make a realistic dragon egg, cover a styrofoam egg with overlapping thumbtacks. You can decorate heads of the thumbtacks with spray paint, nail polish, or any kind of brush on paint.

Materials

• Foam Eggs
• A lot of thumbtacks (we went through about 300 for an egg that was 2.7 inches tall. When in doubt, buy too many.)
• Paint (Just about anything works. You can go super quick and use spray paint or do what I did and poach some nail polish from your wife)
• Glitter (optional – I think this is the devil’s creation and spreads faster than Covid)
• Piece of cardboard

Paint the Dragon Egg Scales

Okay, this is the tedious part (actually, it’s not too bad. I’m just whining). First we need to set up the thumbtacks to paint them. 

Start by taking all of those thumbtacks and pin just the tip into the cardboard so they can stand up. You want to go just deep enough that they can stand on their own but not too deep that it’s a pain to take out later. Make sure none of the heads touch. 

Now it’s time to paint. Really anything works, but I recommend using anything that will have some texture to the color. Some nail polish can have some sparkle or shimmer and is a little shiny (and comes with a brush you don’t need to clean later), or you can get some cool textured spray paint. 

Even a simple acrylic paint painted with a brush will do the job. You can give the paint job a little texture if you’re a little heavy handed with your application (something I discovered when my youngest painted without too much… finesse).

If you’re going to go with the acrylic paint, try mixing two colors, but only lightly mix them together. This will give a cool multicolor effect. 

Consider sprinkling some glitter on top of the wet paint (if your soul allows you to use glitter). My youngest son was all about this. He wanted all the glitter.

Remember that these are dragon eggs, so think more “fantastical”. A simple even paint job with everything looking perfectly uniform is fine, but consider spicing it up. Use multi color, something with some sparkle to look a little metallic, whatever. Slight variation between each egg scale will look so much cooler (and we like things to be a bit extra around here). 

You can also not paint them at all! If you’re happy with the finish of the original thumbtacks, then skip this step all together.

Apply the Thumbtack Scales to Your Dragon Egg

This part is pretty straight forward; we’re going to cover the whole foam egg with the painted thumbtacks. If you have a young child, then let them go to town. 

Start with one painted thumbtack the the middle of the bottom of the egg. Work your way up and around the the egg until the whole egg is covered with thumbtacks. (If you like the idea of the scales going up, then start at the top and work your way down).

Make sure each thumbtack isn’t too close together (or you’re going to quickly run out of thumbtacks). The heads of the thumbtacks should overlap just enough that the white foam doesn’t show through. 

In the end you should have what looks like an egg covered in dragon scales (with a surprising amount of weight to it!).