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How to make an easy dragon watermelon carving for parties

Watermelon is one of my go-to party foods.  It’s pretty universally liked, easy to serve, and reasonably priced.  For Little Miss’ Dragon Party, I thought the food table was missing a little something.  So I tried my hand at my first ever watermelon carving and made a watermelon dragon.

Watermelon Dragon from our Dragons: Race To The Edge party. A Netflix spin-off of How To Train Your Dragon. It was a fun dragon party that the kiddos loved at her birthday party

What you need for your watermelon dragon

  • 1 watermelon
  • wooden skewers
  • sharp knife
  • melon baller (optional)

How I made my watermelon dragon

I started by cutting the watermelon in half and scooping out all the fruit.  I used a melon baller, but you can use any method you prefer.  This half became the body of my dragon.

Watermelon Dragon from our Dragons: Race To The Edge party. A Netflix spin-off of How To Train Your Dragon. It was a fun dragon party that the kiddos loved at her birthday party

From the other half of the watermelon, I cut a slice from the cut side of the watermelon and set it aside.  Then I scooped out the second half.

From the second half, I made the wings and feet of the dragon.

I used the natural curve of the watermelon to my advantage and just cut triangles for the wings.

Watermelon Dragon from our Dragons: Race To The Edge party. A Netflix spin-off of How To Train Your Dragon. It was a fun dragon party that the kiddos loved at her birthday party

To make the wings sit flush along the top of the body, I cut two small notches for each wing.

Watermelon Dragon from our Dragons: Race To The Edge party. A Netflix spin-off of How To Train Your Dragon. It was a fun dragon party that the kiddos loved at her birthday party

Then I attached the wings with the wooden skewers.

Watermelon Dragon from our Dragons: Race To The Edge party. A Netflix spin-off of How To Train Your Dragon. It was a fun dragon party that the kiddos loved at her birthday party

For the feet, I cut smaller triangles, but I used my melon baller to help made guidelines to cut out the toes.  I wedged the feet under the body of the dragon.

Watermelon Dragon from our Dragons: Race To The Edge party. A Netflix spin-off of How To Train Your Dragon. It was a fun dragon party that the kiddos loved at her birthday party

Next, I moved onto the head.  From the large slice I cut earlier, I cut out the length needed for the neck.  Using my melon baller, I scooped the fruit away to leave a slightly scalloped edge.

Watermelon Dragon from our Dragons: Race To The Edge party. A Netflix spin-off of How To Train Your Dragon. It was a fun dragon party that the kiddos loved at her birthday party

I used skewers to attach the neck to the body of the watermelon dragon.  To create the tail, I repeated this process with a smaller piece.

I felt like the head was still missing something, so I cut a small piece from the leftovers of the giant slice and attached it to the head of the dragon, to resemble an open mouth.

Watermelon Dragon from our Dragons: Race To The Edge party. A Netflix spin-off of How To Train Your Dragon. It was a fun dragon party that the kiddos loved at her birthday party

After I was OK with the placement of all the pieces, I cut the skewers down so they were not as noticeable.

Finally, I filled the dragon with watermelon and added it to the food table.

Watermelon Dragon from our Dragons: Race To The Edge party. A Netflix spin-off of How To Train Your Dragon. It was a fun dragon party that the kiddos loved at her birthday party

I was expecting the process of making a watermelon sculpture to be a lot longer, but since I used basic shapes, and let the curve of the watermelon work for me, it only took about 30 minutes.

Watermelon Dragon from our Dragons: Race To The Edge party. A Netflix spin-off of How To Train Your Dragon. It was a fun dragon party that the kiddos loved at her birthday party

Check out the rest of our Dragons: Race to the Edge party!