Hi guys!
So this week I made a few dragons.
First off, I don’t know how many of you have seen Dragons and Beasties dragons? They are made out of clay and the cutest little things you could possibly imagine. If you haven’t already go and look at them. Honestly, you’ll drool over them.
Well, she made a video tutorial of how she makes her dragons.
It’s an hour long, but it’s fairly detailed.
I watched it to about 45 – 50 minutes (or more) and once she started on the wings, I knew I was out of my league. Mainly because I didnt know what those little stick wire things she was using was and I didn’t have anything equivalent (maybe paperclips?) so I just thought I’d stop while I was still ahead on mine and I kinda just made up how the legs were going to look.
So I first started with this frame:
During this, I thought it totally did not look like a dragon and in no way was going to be a dragon. But whatever. I’ll give it a go and see what I come up with.
Then when I was all done and it was baked:
Truthfully, I’m really happy with how this turned out. Not as good as hers, but this was my first try and I don’t know how many she’s made.
The other thing I made was this little crochet dragon:
I used a basic black in fingering weight (pretty sure its fingering weight) and then I doubled it with Hobby Lobby’s Yarn Bee Bejeweled Sequin yarn in… mulberry I believe. I picked up two balls of this stuff on clearance, one in a reddish color which was some weird name like mulberry and then one in copper.
For the wings/accents I used Lion Brand Yarn Vanna’s Glamour in bronze. I doubled up this yarn as well to give me a thicker base.
Anyway, I don’t usually site a lot of the yarns I use since I tend to lose the labels as I’m working (or they’be been in my stash for yeaaaars and the label fell off.. or I bought a mini ball at some thrift store without a label)
So, in case you didn’t realize, the reason the last two pictures are like that is because I made a light box.
There are lots of DIY lightboxes online and some of them come out looking pretty awesome, mine definitely doesn’t look all that fancy. This one was one of the videos I watched when I made my new light box. See, I made one before using printer paper.. but I didn’t have lights for it… but it gave it a nicer background before.. Then I moved and I looked at this contraption that was generally too small for my crafts ANYWAY, and I threw it away. So, this time, I actually used a poster board (from the dollar store.. WOO!!!) and white tissue paper.. I did use a box again, one I bought for abouuuut $1 (less really) instead of the craft board. I went to the store and was looking for the craft board like these guys used, buuuuut I could only find it in black, and I was a little leery of it cause it was more expensive. So, I decided to check out boxes. The one I used was 14×14, but I probably needed a little more as I had to cut my poster board to fit it into the box. Another tip, since I usually do all craft things by myself, I had a tiiiny bit of trouble taping down the tissue paper. I’d recommend taking a small amount of tape and taping the corners down first before you finish taping a side. One of the issues I ran across was that when I did it by side, the tissue paper would fall into the cut out square and I had to be careful when I was retrieving it. After the first time of doing that, I taped down my corners and it went a lot faster.
(That’s the video I was referencing… in case anyone was curious)
Also, when I went to the store, they only had two portable lights instead of three. I still got the two, and figured I’d pick up the third at a later date. So all the pictures above were with the two portable lights on either side and my phone without flash.
To see the difference:
Phone with flash.. It works in a way, but it gives it a weird after/double image.
Double image gone, buuuuut now everything has that pinky background. It’s still with my phone (and without flash) since I was being lazy and didn’t wanna grab my camera.
Anyway, how many of you have tried to make your own light box? Did you like how it came out? Do you get that pinky/peachy coloring to yours? Or double images? What about Dragons and Beasties? Have any of you all drooled over the little dragons? xD
I hope you are all doing well and happy crafting!
The Dragon's Cave 