Yes, I know I'm a little late on this post. Cinco de Mayo was almost a month ago. But I've been busy.
First off, I apologize for the poor picture quality in this post. My craft room is a little cluttered, and was very cluttered when I whipped these up.
One of my co-workers was having a Cinco de Mayo party at her house. I volunteered to make a pinata, which turned into 2 pinatas (one for the kids and one for the adults). There are a lot of "how-to make a pinata" instruction blogs out there, and I've probably read them all. The problem was (and I run into this a lot) is that I didn't need/couldn't find what I needed in them.
Many of them suggested I use paper mache. This would be fine except I was was unable to figure out how to make a form that I could remove after the paper mache dried. I wanted specific shapes, and I wasn't backing down. I decided then to use thin cardboard (as another blog suggested). But where to buy that for cheap?
Then I remembered my stash of "holiday boxes." You know, the ones you
put clothing in at Christmas? Yeah, I have a ton of those. So I made
my "forms" using cardboard boxes and packaging tape. The one I made for
the adults (the chili pepper) I reinforced with even more packaging tape
afterward to make it harder to break.
Now he's all made (and I won't lie, it's not always easy to get cardboard to do what you want and then stay there)!
Don't forget to cut a hole to stick the candy and the string inside. On the llama, I filled as I went so I didn't need a hole.
As for the string, I braided decorative paper "ribbon." I would buy a large-ish washer and tie it around that on the inside of the pinata. This was it will put even stress on the hole and be a lot less likely to fall out. I do not have a picture of this as I had this brilliant idea AFTER I was almost finished with both pinatas. If you merely knot the string on the inside of the hole it WILL fall out (even if you tape it), trust me.
Most pinatas that you buy in the store are made with tissue paper. It would require a LOT of tissue paper, and I didn't want to go broke. I visited the dollar store (for almost all of my supplies) to buy tissue paper and they didn't have any plain tissue paper. What they did have was a lot of bright crepe paper. If you learn one thing from reading this post, let it be this: USE CREPE PAPER TO COVER YOUR PINATAS. This makes life so much easier!
I wrapped each cardboard form with a single layer of crepe paper (the same color as what I would "fringe" on top). I did this for 2 reasons; first, no ugly cardboard would stick out and two, in the interest of time and money, I wanted to use regular white glue to glue everything on. Glue will stick to paper, but it will not stick to tape very well. I used double sided tape to fasten the crepe paper to the cardboard, a small piece here and there.
Now the fun part, the fringe! To make it super easy on myself, I worked in bulk. I measured/guessed how long each piece of crepe paper needed to be (to wrap the whole way around once) and then cut several strips that same size. I laid them on top of one another and cut all the fringe at the same time. So fast and easy! Then, starting at the bottom and working up, I used a VERY thin line of white glue along the top and pressed it on. It seems like this would be the most time consuming, but it really wasn't...plus it was kind of relaxing. All the planning and fabrication was done, all that was left was the decorating.
Sadly, I do not have a picture of them being destroyed. One blog I read suggested cutting a small slit on the side for easier breaking. I would recommend that if you're not hitting them with a baseball bat (and the hitters don't have a mean right swing). The best part is, the cardboard was free (most the boxes I used were ones given to me/ld), the crepe paper was $1 for 2 rolls (and you will not use nearly as much as you think), and the rest of the money was spent on candy/small trinkets. The dollar store was key to making this craft (which is where I got the candy too). Most of your cost is the "guts," so you can really spend as much (or little) as you'd like!
Have you ever made a pinata? Let me hear your thoughts! :)
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