Get Crafty: Make The Perfect Birthday Party Pinata
For parties of all kinds, especially birthday parties, fun games are essential. Activities like a Mexican piñata keep kids of all ages entertained and make the special event seem extra festive. They’re colorful, can be different shapes or characters, and are always stuffed full of candy, treats, or small toys. The piñata is hung from a high place, like a tree branch. People are blindfolded and given a stick to try their luck at breaking apart the piñata and collecting the treats that spill out. Make a birthday piñata for your next party and let the fun begin.
The Technique
Piñatas are usually made with papier-mâché. For this technique, newspaper strips are dipped in paste and then laid in an overlapping manner on a temporary form. Once the paste dries, the form is removed and the papier-mâché shell is left behind. If you know what to do, this can be a fun and easy craft project for an afternoon.
How to Make a Birthday Pinata
1. First, get your materials ready. For the simplest form, blow up a balloon. Make a paste or use store-bought papier-mâché paste. You will also need a good quantity of old newspapers as well as supplies to decorate your piñata, such as acrylic paint, ribbon, colored crepe paper or tissue paper, glue, and scissors.
2. Tear the newspaper into strips. A good size to use is about 6 inches long and 1 inch wide.
3. Dip the newspaper strips into the paste so they’re completely coated. Remove any excess paste by running the strips between two pinched fingers.
4. Place the paste-soaked strips on the balloon, making sure they slightly overlap and go in all directions.
5. Completely cover the surface of the balloon, leaving a small opening near the top (this is how you will fill the piñata with candy/treats later).
6. After you have applied the first layer of paste/newspaper, let it dry completely. This usually requires sitting overnight.
7. Apply at least two more layers of papier-mâché, making sure to let each layer dry thoroughly before moving on to the next.
8. Once all layers are dry, you can then pop the balloon and remove it through the opening you left at the top.
9. Now you can decorate! Use brightly colored acrylic paint to paint a design right on the birthday piñata (make sure to prime the entire thing with white paint first if you want the colors to look bright and clear). Other options for decoration:
Use strips of colorful crepe or tissue paper and wrap it around the form, securing with glue. For an authentic look, cut slits into the bottom of the paper, making sure not to cut all the way across. This creates a fringed effect.
Use a few different colors of paper to create a striped or rainbow pattern.
Once you’ve decorated your birthday piñata creation, all that’s left to do is fill the opening with candy, treats, prizes, or small toys, and hang it up with string. You’re ready to party! For more that’s authentically Mexican and to supply your party with yummy eats, try Benito’s Authentic Mexican Food in Fort Worth.
