Piñatas for the Party

This weekend is my mom's birthday! {yay!}

Doug, Carrie, and I are so excited to be traveling to California this

weekend to celebrate with a whole lot of friends and family.

Mom's party will be held at a Mexican restaurant and I made piñatas for the occasion. The original plan was to use them as table centerpieces until I found out there were going to be 15 tables and I had to put the brakes on. This was quite a contrast to my original thoughts in the beginning where I imagined myself making piñatas as gifts for everyone I knew to match whatever occasion they were celebrating. I had thought, "I'll be the piñata girl!" mmmm...No.

These little guys were not difficult to make, but proved to be quite time consuming. I know, I should have done a tutorial but alas, I did not take photos of the process beyond my initial shot of the paper maché balloons drying on my kitchen counter.

I used crepe paper streamers - you know the stuff that comes in a roll? I used pieces about 12 inches long, folded in half and fringed on the fold edge. {Doug and Carrie helped me with cutting fringe and my awesome shoulder thanks them!} Then I glued them in strips from the bottom up until the entire base was covered.

I filled the piñatas with candy and a few little random toys, then covered up the hole. The horse's belly is where the candy went in. The strawberry leaves cover its filling hole, and the little birdie's feet keep the candy inside of him. I designed these so that the recipient can easily open the piñata without having to bust the whole thing open in the traditional way.

We've giving these piñatas away as prizes at Mom's party.

Which one is your favorite?

{I'm partial to the little birdie.}

♥

Piñatas and other plans

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If this is supposed to be a surprise for my Mom's upcoming birthday party, I'm about to blow it.

{SURPRISE, Mom!}

My mom's birthday is coming up at the end of April and we're throwing a fiesta themed party for her. When my sister and I started talking about it I had the bright idea to make small piñatas for the table centerpieces. I had seen the idea {here} and had been itching to make one {or eight} myself.

I tried drawing the shape myself and instead of a donkey it looked like a dog, so I found a piece of clip art that I enlarged and used as a template. When Doug came home I asked him what he thought the shape looked like - a loaded question and he hesitated before answering, "Um...a pony?" Close enough!

I used a cereal box for the form, and once I had it put together I used some spray paint to make the base a neutral color. I used some crepe paper streamers, folded in half and fringed, then glued from the bottom up. I had plans to photograph the finished piñata with something to show the scale of his size...but I'm off and running this morning and wanted to get this post published. He's about 8" tall and I figure he'll hold at least one bag of Hershey's kisses. {His underside is still open and that's where I'll load the candy before taping it shut and covering it with more crepe paper.}

But wait...there's more...

There's not just one table, and in the beginning I was thinking there would be 6 or 8 tables needing centerpieces so I've already started a few more. Latest news is that there will be 15 tables {which doesn't sound right so we have to confirm...} and if that is the case, some of the tables will not have piñatas on them. These guys aren't difficult to make, but have proven to be fairly time consuming. I texted Carrie with: "Turns out that my plans to be a professional piñata maker are not feasible."

The balloons are covered with newspaper strips dipped in a flour and water solution. Squint your eyes...do you see a strawberry, bird, and hot-air balloon? Yes? Maybe?

I do kind of like this little guy though, and can see that something like this would make a cute baby shower or little kid's birthday party gift some day. Unless I completely burn out on piñata making between now and then.

~sigh~
Me and my crazy ideas.
Happy weekend, everyone!
♥