How to Build a Piñata

Estimated Time: Depending on the size of the piñata it may take12 to 18-ish hours if working by yourself not including an 8 hour plus dry time.

You will need:

• 1 bag of flour

• 1 bowl large enough to hold 1 gallon or two of liquid.

• Access to a water supply.

• A good sized amount of newspaper if you plan on using a balloon in your design.

• Balloons (traditional or the long snake ones, whatever you need to make your desired build.

• Scissors

• box cutter

• colored packing paper, (that stuff you’ve been covering your Christmas gifts with when you bag them because you are too ashamed of your gift wrapping skills.)

• Glue preferably a gallon jug and a hand held option as you will basicly have to cover the entire body of your creation with it unless you want something to look smooth.

• Cardboard boxes of varying size depending on what you want to make.

• Hot Glue Gun

• 10-ish glue sticks for said glue gun.

• At least 6 inches of wire

• pliers with wire cutters

• Notepad

• Pencil or pen

• masking tape

• yarn and/or 550 cord

Step 1: Decide what you want to make into a piñata.

Step 2: The piñata is made hollow by using balloons and boxes. Keep that in mind as you FORMULATE A PLAN to bring your desired creation to life. The life span of a piñata is pretty short so you probably won’t have to do things like break out rulers and graphing paper unless you want to impress someone.

Step 3: Set up your cardboard boxes for failure. This means making sure you make the box fragile enough to be broken by whatever and whoever you plan on breaking it. You wouldn’t want to make your box rock hard for your three year old daughter’s birthday party but you would want to make a pretty hard target for your 18 year old son and the rest of his football team to tackle in effigy towards an opposing team’s coach during homecoming. This all depends on how weak you make the seams. Anything someone is going to have to smash with a baseball bat or weaker to open you would want to assemble with as little glue holding the seems together as possible. Precut large slits through edges that are solid before hand.

Step 4: If you are doing Balloons in your build, tear your newspaper into inch wide strips along the grain. If you go the other way, it will still work but the newspaper will tear more while you are trying to apply it.

Step 5: Fill the gallon bowl halfway full of water.

Step 6: Stir in flour until the mixture is white but still watery.

Step 7: Blow up one of your balloons.

Step 8: Take one of your newspaper strips and submerge it in the flour water.

Step 9: Pull your newspaper strip out of the flour water.

Step 10: Using your pointer and middle finger, squeegee off excess flour water until the strip just appears damp.

Step 11: Wrap the wet strip around the smallest end of the balloon.

Step 12: Repeat Steps 8 to 10 laying the second strip above and overlapping the first strip.

Step 13: Keep laying overlapping strips of wet newspaper until you have covered the entire balloon.

Step 14: Lay down a second and maybe a third layer of wet newspaper over the first.

Step 15: Pull out your 550 cord and scissors to make yourself a clothesline over a surface you wouldn’t mind getting covered with flour water like a linoleum floor or you could hang it in your bathroom on a shower curtain rod.

Step 16: Hang up your balloons on your 550 cord or shower rod using the yarn (you could also cut open some 550 cord and use the nylon strings inside).

Step 17: Let the balloon dry. Should take about 8 hours.

Step 18: Cut your balloons down.

Step 19: Pop your balloon with your scissors or something. It’ll deflate inside your dried newspaper shell and you can pull it right out.

Step 20: Using the hot glue gun, scissors, box cutter, masking tape, strips of cardboard or (if you really don’t have a deadline more newspaper and flour-water) assemble your balloons and/or boxes into the desired shape.

Step 21: There are three options from here: you could make a skirt, a poofy, just paint it, or use a combination of the three. I’m pretty sure everyone knows how to paint something so I’m going to define skirt and poofy.

Skirt - These sheets are thin enough you can do a whole stack at once. You take your colorful Christmas bag paper and cut it into 2 inch strips. Then cut one inch into the two inch strip one inch away from the edge of the strip on the longer side and repeat about every inch all along that one side. The result should be a teeth looking thing. You apply the skirt like you would shingle a house. Apply a line of glue along the bottom of the uncut side and stick it to the very bottom of the thing your decorating. Then apply the next one overlapping that one so that the frilly part overlaps and conceals the uncut predecessor. Repeat until the whole surface area you want covered is covered.

Poofy - To make a poofy first cut your colorful Christmas paper into 3X3 inch squares. Then pour some glue onto a newspaper so you have a little puddle. Pick up your pencil and a square. Keeping the eraser of the pencil in the center of the square wrap the square around the end of your pencil like a Hershey’s Kiss. Dip the now covered eraser tip in your puddle of glue and then stick it anywhere in the area you want decorated. Wash rinse and repeat until the whole area is covered in Poofies.

Step 22: Cut a piece of wire to a length of about a foot long. Bend the wire in half and twist the two ends around each other about five times until you end up with a loop in the center with about four inches of wire left on both ends. Then take your pliers and bend both ends individually back and forth until they resemble a jack-o-lanters smile with a loop in the center. If you’ve done this right it should look like a really crappy penguin statue. This is your ANCHOR. You will be hanging your piñata from this. Cut a hole in the top-ish part of your piñata and stick the loop part of this thingy through it. Then cut a piece of cardboard off big enough to cover the penguin loops squiggly feet and apply a bunch of hot glue to the board and cover the squigglies with it gluing it into place.

Step 23: Cut a little trap door in the piñata somewhere and fill it with candy.

Step 24: Suspend the piñata into the air and let your customer/kid go to town.