For my daughter’s 4th birthday party, we just had all our family come over, so it was a really simple party. However, I wanted to do a couple of things to make it really special for her. When we were growing up, my mom was always making piñatas for fun occasions- Christmas parties, birthdays, Halloween parties, school parties . . . you name it and my mom has probably made a piñata for it! 🙂
This is actually the first piñata that I have ever attempted and with my mom’s and husband’s help, it turned out pretty good!
Want to make your own piñata? Here is how I made mine:
To get started, you only need three things:
-a blown-up balloon (mine was about a 10″ balloon)
-lots and lots of newspaper cut into 1.5″x 9″ strips (I actually started just ripping the strips because it was so much easier than cutting)
-flour/water mixture for your paste (I used about 1/2 cup flour and a little more than a 1/2 cup water. Just add a little more water or flour to get it to a thick, pasty consistency. Some people add Elmer’s glue, but I never have. The flour and water paste works just fine!)
Place your balloon on a small glass bowl or something that will keep it standing upright. Dip a strip of newspaper into your paste mixture and cover it completely in paste. Run the newspaper strip through 2 of your fingers (I use my index and middle finger) to remove excess paste (and yes, your hands will be a mess when you are done!).
Completely cover all of the exposed balloon and let it dry (stick it in the sunshine or over a heater vent for quicker drying time!). It usually takes a couple of hours (or overnight).
Once it’s dry, flip the balloon over and cover the exposed balloon with more strips of newspaper strips. Let dry completely. Now depending on how strong/thick you want your pinata to be, add more layers of newspaper, repeating the above steps. We usually do 2 layers, but when my mom wants it to be extra thick (like for a classroom party with lots of kids who want a turn to take a swing at the pinata), she will do 4 or 5 layers.
Decide what end will be the top of the pinata. Cut two small holes in the top so that you can run a rope through to hang your pinata from. Also, cut another small hole in the top so that you can pour candy and small toys inside. Also, when you cut your holes, it will pop the balloon on the inside of the paper mache shape, so try and fish out the deflated balloon. 🙂
Now for the cone part, use a large piece of posterboard and roll a cone shape. Glue or staple into place.
Using hot glue or super glue, attach the posterboard cone to the dried balloon pinata. Hold in place while it dries.
For the cone part of the pinata, you will need a roll of light brown/tan crepe paper and a bottle of Elmer’s school glue. Unroll a section of crepe paper (don’t cut it off) and place a line of glue along the top (and just a side note- I promise that is my husband’s legs . . . and I promise that I do shave my legs).
Starting at the tip of the cone, wrap the crepe paper around and around the cone shape, adding more glue as you go. Wrap it all the way to the top of the cone.
Now for the ice cream part, you will need 2 rolls of pink (or any other color) of crepe paper. Cut many, many small squares.
Using an unsharpened pencil, place the pencil in the middle of the small square of crepe paper. Wrap the crepe paper around the pencil. There is really no rhyme or reason to it and you can experiment with how tight or how loose you like it to look on the pinata.
Dip the flat end of the square of crepe paper (still wrapped around the pencil) in a little bit of Elmer’s school glue.
Place the small square of crepe paper on the pinata . . . and repeat . . . and repeat . . . and repeat a couple hundred more times. 🙂
We found that it was easiest to finish the top of the pinata when it was hanging so that the rest of the crepe paper was not smashed.
And the finished product ended up being a huge hit (ha ha! No pun intended!)!
The birthday girl got a few good hits in . . .
Then little brother took a couple of swings . . .
And after all the cousins and a couple of uncles gave it a couple of good hits, it finally broke!
The kids . . .
And the adults worked as fast as they could to pick up all the candy! 🙂
For the treats at the party, we had a Build-Your-Own Ice Cream Sundae table.
Here are the ingredients that I used so that people could build their own sundaes:
-Hot Fudge
(I kept it in a small crock pot so that it would stay warm)
-Chocolate sauce
-Caramel sauce
-M & M’s
-Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
-Mixed Berries
-Cherries
-Gummy Bears
-Sprinkles
-Cookie Dough chunks
(I just made my favorite cookie dough and didn’t add eggs)
-Brownie chunks
-Crushed Oreos
-Crushed Thin Mint Cookies
-Chocolate Chips
The kids (and adults) were in their heaven!
We also served these cupcakes.
All the cute Ice Cream Party Printables can be found at Hoosier Homemade.
Happy Partying!
Check out my blog: http://bakingcraze.blogspot.ie/
Jill @ Create.Craft.Love.
This is absolutely fantastic. I bet your daughter loved it.
Sharon
~Liz
I?d love it if you shared this with the Fun Family Crafts audience.
FFC is similar to Craftgawker but it only features kid friendly tutorials.
Looking forward to seeing what fun crafts you submit!
http://funfamilycrafts.com