Chinese New Year: DIY Dragon

Today is the start of Chinese New Year! 

And although it's the year of the snake, this dragon is pretty cool. 

I'll post a snake DIY later this week sometime.

The first time I made this dragon was a few years back. And it takes a bit of time to cut all of the pieces out and glue them. But the finished product looks really good IMO. I also put a coat or two of decoupage to make sure my hard work wasn't for naught. It definitely made a more durable dragon. So if you go through all of the hard work of doing the more detailed version, I highly recommend this last step.

We played around with some quicker versions (seen below). More kid friendly versions, that wouldn't take quite as long.

You can find the template print out here. I originally found it on marthastewart.com but I had a hell of a time finding it again. I think it's been removed.Or you could always draw your own, which is what I did. In fact I didn't actually follow any instructions. I just looked at the picture and did something fairly similar. 

In staying true to me not buying new supplies, I drew my dragon spines by hand with my handy dandy gold pen and just cut them out. (Jett's a Blues Clues fan, can you tell?) Then I just drew my face with the gold pen as well. 

I had these pink and red fasteners that I spray painted gold to match my dragon. You just put them into a piece of paper or cardboard and spray them. This is a great tip for painting drawer pulls and screws as well. A lil some-n- some-n I picked up back when I was a painter. Yes, a painter. As in houses. In Florida. I know.

Jude made this one all by himself. I think he did a great job. Maybe we'll put some eyes and extra scales on a little later. 

We've had a great weekend crafting our dragons and snakes while it's snowed all weekend.

I'm trying to enjoy the snow and cold and not wish myself to the new season. 

But oh, warm weather sounds so good.