Homemade Birthday Pinata

So this has very little to do with food, but my oldest boy's birthday is coming up, and, for the fourth year in a row, he's asked for a piniata.


Now, the last few years, I would see the "cartoon character" pinatas for sale at most large stores.  Kids could beat the snot out of Dora, SpongeBob, or Spider-Man.  While a large part of me also wanted to beat the snot out of those lovable characters, I was attempting to curb the violent tendencies in my children.  So, I went looking for some villain pinatas and couldn't find any.


So it turns out making a homemade pinata is actually very simple, as long as you're not too picky about it looking like a specific character.  Or if you have enough artist in you to see shapes in clouds, you can probably "see" the intended shape in the final product.  So I've made pinatas that look like: spiders, bats, and eggs.  This year is going to be a Super Mario Goomba.  Hopefully it will turn out well (seeing as it's not technically done right now.)

Basically, you blow up a large balloon in the basic shape you want: The spider's body, bat's body, and "egg" were all "balloon" shapes, but you can get long, narrow balloons to make, I don't know, a snake or a caterpillar or something.  Then you hang the balloon by a string somehow.  I just tied to to my ceiling fan.  With the fan off, of course.  Then, you cover the balloon in at least 3 layers of paper mache, made with flour and water, mixed into a liquidy paste (thinner than dough, about as thick as cake batter), with torn strips of newspaper dragged through the "paste" and laid on the balloon. 

NOTE: Allow each layer to dry completely before adding the next layer and ALSO: keep a hole at the string large enough to put the candy through.  When the 3 layers are on and dry, cut it down, pop the balloon, and you have... a hornet's nest.  Yeah, it's basically a hornet's nest.  That's why you add legs, wings, and paint until it looks like what you wanted it to look like in the first place. 

Then, poke 2 or three holes with a pencil and thread through your hanging wire or string.  Then, fill up with candy or small cheap toys (like tops or whistles, those are good *sarcasm*).  Then, close up the hole with some more paper mache  and finish painting. 

All in all, this is a multi-day project because of all the drying time.  This is what Andrew's Goomba looks like now:

I will post pics of the finished product when it's done.