Wild About Harry: Breeding Dragons

Out of the blue one day, I had this crazy thought- what if we had eggs at the party?  With magical creatures inside???

Now, we could have had any sort of magical creatures for our Hogwarts party.  I thought about spiders.  Rats.  Toads.  Unicorns.  Magic worms.  And dragons.


Yes, dragons.  And the choice was up to The Redhead.  I'm sure I thought of even more critters than those, but dragons topped her list.  Thanks to Oriental Trading, dragons arrived on our doorstep a couple months back.  And recently, I decided to start the dragon breeding process.  Breeding dragons isn't easy, folks.  But it's worth it.  It's so very worth it.

My personal supplies for breeding dragons.  Balloons.  Plush dragons.

That's seriously it for now.  The color of the balloons doesn't matter.

Now the fun part was trying to get a dragon into the tiny little opening.  Ouch is right.

So, this wasn't an easy process.  Not at all.  And I went through A LOT of balloons just to get one dozen dragons into their little sacs.  I had 38 balloons at one point.  I was only able to get six dragons into them without breaking/tearing/bursting the balloons.  They were cheap balloons and I hurt a lot of my fingers, two to the point I wasn't sure they'd recover.  I seriously worried I'd have to go visit a professional and have to make up some story so they wouldn't know how I really hurt my fingers.  Because folks, there was no way I was telling them how I actually hurt myself.

Here's an important tip.  If you ever have some crazy notion to stuff things into balloons, do not even consider blowing them up with your mouth.  Please.  Because that's going to get moisture into the balloons.  Balloon pumps are great for this.  If you don't have a balloon pump because one time your child wanted a circus/carnival party so you decided to learn how to make balloon doggies...well, go buy one at the Dollar Tree then, or somewhere else.  Seriously, don't use your mouth.  So, so gross.

Then I found a package of balloons I bought last year, from Michael's, and they're bigger balloons, and much stretchier, and all of the dragons fit nicely inside.  Without breaking any fingers.

Once all of the balloons were blown up, they hung out for a couple days, and then I saw the stretchy, wonderful, blue balloons were losing their fabulous egg shapes.  So goes being the better balloons.  So I finally started the messier part of breeding.  And pumped those blue ones back into shape.

You can do the flour method for papier-mache, or you can use the glue mixture.  I went with glue.  And water.  Like I was modpodging.

That's it.

I have been using this handy dandy card table for all of my projects.  I made sure the surface was covered, as I anticipated this was going to be a chaotic mess.  It was.  Indeed.

I was dreading this project because I detest stickiness.  HATE IT.  But I had to march ahead anyway and cover those eggs with at least three layers of newspaper and the glue mix.

It also helps to have your phone handy so you can text your best friend back and forth.  Except when your fingers are so nasty from the glue that you can't touch anything.  Not your phone.  Not the door handle.  Not even the remote to put another movie on.

Not all of the balloons had the perfect egg shape, but I used them anyway.

I kept this one over here, as The Redhead was really hoping she could hatch a green dragon.  And while I don't want to indulge her every whim, she will be the birthday girl.  

Meanwhile, the cat watched the hummingbirds.

This project indeed took over six hours.

I ran into a little snag while attempting to remove balloons almost a week later.  While with a typical pinata project, you can just pull out the balloon once everything has dried, it's not that easy when a dragon is in it.  Nope.  The eggs make these bizarre noises as the balloon deflates and tightens around the dragon.  Amniotic sacs, they are.  Good times.

I have been hot glue crazy lately ever since I channeled Garrick Ollivander.  So I decided to add scroll work and other designs on these eggs before painting.

The Redhead's egg.

Both sides are marked with Bs.

Now, how are we incorporating these into the party?

You'll just have to wait and see.  I'm not giving away all of my secrets,

But Hogwarts is definitely taking over our house.

As a Computer Slowly Dies

At least four years ago, a machine started coming apart, much like a woman in her thirties.  It wasn't an old machine, but it started forgetting things.  It started losing things.  It misplaced the ability to open photos.  It didn't always like certain websites.  It didn't always want to show videos.  Then eventually other things went too.  The ability to open graphics in Microsoft Word.  Running important programs like Photoshop.  Microsoft Word crashed all the time.  And slowly a woman who depended on her machine more than she should saw her lifeline unable to even open Microsoft Word at all, the computer claimed it wasn't even there.    She really did wonder...what was next to go?  Then the final straw was when she couldn't print anything.



Before you feel sorry for this non-hypothetical woman, it didn't have to get to this point.  Her husband told her years ago her machine was awful and apologized for picking it out.  He also forced her to buy a machine over two months ago, after years of telling her to pick one out, albeit, he had yet to set it up, but still.  It wasn't until a few weeks ago, she finally moved her other files to an external hard drive.  And as you guessed it, that woman is of course me.   Yes, me.  I know, I know, you're so surprised.



My computer started dying in Kansas, so long ago, I don't even know when it started.  I know I had to rely on Mister Man's machine at times.  I could use my machine for certain things, but it was quite finicky.  It always has been.  I'm hoping this new machine is nicer to me.  I haven't been able to properly use Photoshop in an incredibly long time.  And I'm ecstatic to have Microsoft Office working!  YAY ME!  To just simply open photo files without using an additional program?  WHOA!  How I let it go on as long as I did, I don't know.  Sometimes my inability to change allows me to suffer in conditions that are not okay.  I recognize that in myself.  I am fully aware.



Also, how did we let ourselves become so fully dependent on computers?  I admit it, I need mine for everything.  Mister Man and The Redhead like computers for playing games, I use mine for everything else.



So me and all my baggage is now using a new machine.  All of my 5k of fonts are installed (and that's not an exaggeration).  My external drive is plugged in.  I still need to install Photoshop and my Silhouette software.  That's right!  I bought a Silhouette last fall and haven't even been able to use it!  The old machine refused to allow me to make any new friends.  I also need to add all of my favorite links.  I would like to lie and tell you that means I'll be blogging more, but the old machine had little to do with my lack of blogging.  And I don't want to lie to you.



But my new computer says hi.

Wild About Harry: Quills on the Supply List

Last week, I decided to scratch another task off my list, one I thought would be quite easy.  I had this idea last year to make feather quills using pens and duct tape.  You can't go to Hogwarts without having a quill.

So I took a package of pens from my stash.  (Plus a few more from another package.)

I made sure to save that label for the school.

I used some duct tape I bought specifically for this project.  Luckily, I found these rolls back in the fall at the Dollar Tree.  I didn't even use the second roll, and still have plenty of the first roll left.  The Redhead now gets the leftovers to use for art projects.

I made my feathers to look like this.

I don't really care if you want your feather to look like this.  But that was how I saw it in my head.

This wasn't perfectly centered when I took the photo.

I would then fold the duct tape over the pen.  And when they didn't match up perfectly, and sometimes they didn't, I would cut them to be even.

None of the feathers are exact matches.  Because feathers never are exactly the same.

Then I just slowly cut all of the slits.

Simple enough, right?

The Redhead also made a couple.  This was very simple, yet she was very excited about them!  I have another style of quill I also might end up making, but I wanted to see what the duct tape version would look like first.  I am not disappointed.  If you are, well, go buy your own quill then.

Wild About Harry: The Wand That I Want

I've finally sat myself down and forced myself to look at pictures I took last week.  I did this for you.  Only for you.  I meant to do it sooner, but well, when you're as hyperactive and as easily distracted as I am, that's a lot harder than one might think.



By the way, in case you didn't know, we're having a Hogwarts themed party in July for The Redhead's eleventh birthday.  She's been ready for this party for an incredibly long time since she hasn't even opened one of the books since she was newly nine.  I've been planning it since I reluctantly first started the series back in 2000.  And if one thought I went overboard with all kinds of parties, you could only imagine what I would do with a theme I'm actually wild over.  Obsessive doesn't even begin to describe it.



Two weeks ago, I was concerned that I had yet to start making anything for the party.  I'd bought most everything, aside from food, but I hadn't started any of my real projects.  And trust me, I have a lot of projects planned.  A LOT.  More than I am willing to share at this moment.  And then something amazing happened.  I bought some chop sticks, finally, after coming up empty-handed, and inspiration took over.

A total of sixty chopsticks for $1.  Thank you, 99 Cent Only store. The location closest to our house didn't have any, but all was forgiven once I came across these.

Now you may or may not believe me, but I channeled the genius of Garrick Ollivander using chopsticks and my trusty glue gun.  That's it.

Oh, and paint.  I did use paint.  I spent less than $10 on four colors of metallic paint from the Hobby Lobbyists.  You could probably get the paint cheaper, and with coupons.  I didn't.  But you probably could.

Just playing around with my pal, Glue Gun, I came up with these designs.  They were not really planned out.  Well, a few were.  Some were happy accidents.  I would just keep adding glue, letting it dry just a bit so I could touch it and morph it into something, mold it like it was clay.  It was almost like playing with glass.  I had so much fun with these that I couldn't stop.  I keep finding myself making even more wands.  I love that I can do it however I want.

 Incredible things happen once paint is added.

To get the marble looking style, I did a lot of moving around of the chopstick so the glue wouldn't drip.  I would let it get a bit foggy looking, as I found when it was clear was when it was too hot and sticky to work with.  When it's slightly foggy, it's still hot, but I could touch it and mold it.  You don't want to wait too long, otherwise, you can't work with it.  Dry glue is not workable.

I used a piece of foam to hold them.  That's been really convenient.

Again, these were made with cheap chopsticks, a glue gun (with glue sticks I bought for a $1 a bag), and paint.  I didn't use marbles, beads, polymer clay, or anything else.  And they're awesome.  Thanks to these gorgeous beasts, I am now on a Hogwarts frenzy, making all sorts of things.  I'm still not completely done with all of the wands, but I know by July 11th, I will be.