Dinosaur Roar

Recently made dinosaurs

When my son was little (he's 14 now), he was obsessed with dinosaurs. He could not get enough. We had countless dinosaur books, and his favorites were the ones that were fact-based. He liked me to quiz him on the different kinds of dinosaurs. Pachycephalosaurus and parasaurolophus were common words coming out his toddler mouth. I had never paid a whole lot of attention to dinosaurs, so I was learning along with him. His enthusiasm was contagious and his preschool teachers were quite impressed (and probably a little annoyed by his obsession with the dinosaur bin). He had a huge collection of dinosaurs and he named each and every one (names like Clammy, California Jim Johnson, Salty and Beanie). He kept track of their names and their species - Salty was a Saltasaurus, Clammy was a Euoplocephalus (yes, I had to look up how to spell them).

When I first started making animal beads, I made a few dinosaurs. I still have this one that stands guard under my computer:

I really liked this dino when I made it, and I was disappointed when it didn't sell. But now when I look at where I put the bead hole, well, it's pretty obvious why he's still here.

So now I've been giving dinos another shot, and I'm happy we still have my son's all-time favorite book The Big Book of Dinosaurs. It really helped me get some of the details down.

I know there will be lots more dinos coming out of my kiln, evolving and changing as I go. They're really fun to make.