My daughter recently turned six years old. When we asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she didn’t hesitate to reply. She wanted my husband and I to make her a wooden dragon. I knew right away that this was a request that I couldn’t deny, but I also knew that coming up with a dragon plan would take a little bit of time. Guess what, time was the one thing we didn’t have much of – her birthday was only a few days away!
Having several young dragon fans in our house, at least I had a few models to get ideas from. I drew up a quick design and my husband did the same. He is a little more artistic than I am, but my ideas are good! We combined thoughts, he re-sketched a plan and we went to work. He drew up a pattern for the body, traced it onto paper and got started. Meanwhile, I worked off of his sketch and drew up the wings. We were off! A few hours later, thanks to the help of the band saw, scroll saw, drill press and sander, we were ready to stain it then glue it.
Here is a picture of my husband cutting out a set of legs. As you can see, the sketches were rough, but a decent sander can help cover up the rough places in cutting.
Here is a picture of the main body of the dragon after our initial work. Notches were then cut to allow for the wings and legs.
The master woodworker might look at our creation and chuckle, but our daughter was thrilled! He has been given a place of honor in her bedroom, but she tells us that he manages to sneak out every now and then to raid the kitchen. I guess that explains all the missing leftovers.
I love to be able to do things like this for our children and I love it even more that they appreciate it!
