There Be Dragons!

    Over at Altered Eclectics we welcome anything mixed media or altered art, so when I saw how to make a dragon egg I just had to have a go.

     Like most crafters I had a polystyrene egg in my stash already, so all I had to find were the drawing pins and as luck would have it my local supermarket was selling them off at half price.
     My egg is about 3 inches long and took two packs of pins to cover. I began at the top with one pin in the centre and then worked my way down in bands around the egg, making sure that the pins overlapped as I went. It is best to place the pin right the first time as the polystyrene doesn't take kindly to having too many holes, when I reached the bottom of the egg I had to use silicone glue on the last row as they were a bit loose.

     The goblet began life as a rather nice wooden egg cup. This was covered with a coat of black gesso and left to dry. I added a mix of acrylic paints in dark brown and pale green, making sure the green got into the creases.
     The little metal decorations are jewellery findings kindly supplied by Aldridge Crafts, as were the gems. These were bent slightly to follow the curve of the cup and then stuck on with Glossy Accents.
     Once the glue was set I used Cosmic Shimmer gilding waxes in Autumn Bronze, Teal and Golden Light and dabbed them all over the cup. After about ten minutes I buffed the wax with a cloth, taking extra care around the findings. The final addition was to glue some gems around the cup in between the metal decorations and that was my goblet finished.
     If you don't want to make a dragon egg it looks just as good as a fir cone, it's not suitable for small children so make sure it's out of reach when you display it. If you are going to hang it up I suggest wrapping a strong thread all the way around the egg to make your hanging loop as it gets rather heavy with all that metal on it, add the thread before the pins and they will hide it.
     Please come over to Altered Eclectics and take a look at the DT creations, they are all very different, we would love you to join us with your work and tell how you did it, you have a month to make anything you like as long as it's not a card, layout or an ATC.

I would like to enter my Dragon egg in the following challenges:

Inky Chicks - Use A Metal Embellishment

Try It On Tuesday - Hot and Wild (Dragons breathe fire and are definitely wild!)
Crafty Cardmakers and More - Anything But A Card