DIY Game of Thrones Dragon Eggs

I used to be one of those smug people who could claim “Oh, I’ve never actually seen a single episode of Game of Thrones” as if somehow there was some superiority that came along with not being sucked into such a popular show. I honestly couldn’t care less about whether Jon Snow was alive or dead or back to life again. Then one of my husband’s friends convinced us to at least give one episode a try… and the rest of our summer of 2017 was history as we binge watched 67 episodes over a few weeks (yes, that’s 67 hours we had to fit in between our jobs, parenting a 4 year old and occasionally sleeping!). We went on vacation in the middle of our binge and to our delight our daughter decided she wanted to spend hours on end at the kids club – so instead of grabbing a cocktail and chilling by the pool like normal parents who suddenly are granted some freedom, we would just go back to our room and stare at our laptop for hours on end.

Anyway, needless to say I am now a huge Game of Thrones fan, bordering on nerd who reads too many fan theory articles about what may happen in the final season.

The cool thing about Game of Thrones is that there is a lot of inspiration for craft projects. Last year we hosted a small season finale party and I made an Iron Throne as well as one dragon egg. This year I plan on throwing more parties to enjoy the final season with other GOT-nerd friends, so I decided to go whole hog on some more decorations, including making two more eggs to get the full set.

Making dragon eggs is actually ridiculously easy, if not tedious. The worst part about it is driving back to the craft store for a second, then third, then fourth time, when you realize yet again you still don’t have enough push pins/thumb tacks (AKA drawing pins for my fellow Brits).

Supplies are pretty simple:

• Craft foam egg
• Metal push pins – I estimate you will need about 600 (!!!) for each egg if your foam egg is the same size as mine
• Craft paint
• Natural sea sponge

I found it easiest to start at the bottom of the egg, and you simply push the pins into the foam, overlapping each slightly as you move from the left to the right. I basically went around the egg in circles, overlapping each layer slightly as well so you never see a whole pin exposed. (Like me, you may have grand plans of following a lovely clean spiral all the way up the egg but that likely won’t work out. It will be a bit of a hodge podge, but that’s ok – a little randomness in the lines of pins and the degree of overlap actually makes it look a little more natural.)

Once all the pins are in, I recommend coating in a thick layer of mod podge. This helps keep the pins in place – which will be particularly helpful when you paint them, as the last thing you want is for the pins to spin around in place after your finished and start exposing areas that were not painted.

After that’s dry, it’s time to paint. An ombre effect looks the most realistic like the eggs from the show (and also pretty cool) so I found it easiest to find three-to-four different colors ranging from dark to light and paint them on thickly in rough bands on the top, middle and bottom of the egg. Then you can grab a little bit of the sea sponge and use the lighter/darker shades to create a stipple effect on the other areas. This helps blend the colors together as well as giving it a more natural egg effect. I used a metallic or pearl finish paint for at least one of the colors on each of the eggs to help catch the light and give it some more dimension.

I used a coffee mug to hold the egg upright (and then once it was dry I’d flip it over to the do the other side). I’d keep the paint from drying out by covering the paper plate I was using to mix colors with some cling wrap.

And that’s about it. This is about as easy as craft projects get – the only tricky thing is mastering the ombre effect and not obsessing over it and doing 7 different coats like I did. Entirely unnecessary. To display the eggs and keep them stable I rested them on upside-down juice bottle lids, and then ultimately for the party I plan to nestle them among straw.

Warning – The only problem you may encounter is that if you have a child in the age range that still believes in Santa, that they will also likely believe there is a real baby dragon inside each of the eggs. Ellie was so excited when she saw my first egg from 18 months ago and has talked about “her dragon” ever since on a surprisingly regular basis. She made a cozy for it to keep it warm, checks on it frequently and shows it off to her friends when we have play dates. Apparently when it hatches she is going to have it fly her to school every day. So when I made the two new eggs, I worked on them when she wasn’t at home so I wouldn’t spoil her fantasy… and when she saw the two new additions she was super excited that now there will be a dragon for each of us so we can go out riding together as a family. Ahhh, to be a kid again and to get so excited about silly dragon fantasy stories… 😉