Pinatas...

Nicolas' party was this weekend, and he wanted a pinata.

He worked really hard to make one, layering paper mache on a balloon.

Unfortunately we learned that it is important to start way ahead of time as it wasn't drying well. ( I would recommend at least a couple weeks!)

I tried to speed the process up with my heat gun and ended up with a mushy lump in the bottom of the bowl as I accidentally popped the balloon. Oops!

However, once Nicolas shed a few tears over his smushed pinata, we regrouped and tried to find a new way to make a pinata. He decided on a box pinata. Luckily for us, we had several deliveries this week so we had lots of boxes to choose from.

He made this lovely boombox pinata. Didn't it work out beautifully?

After Nicolas found a box that would work, we cut out two circles for the speakers.
We also attached rope in the bottom of the box (which became the top of the pinata) so we could hang it later.

He then spray-painted that side of the box black as we didn't want to spray paint it once the foil was in. Nicolas also spray-painted two small squares of cardboard at the same time, that we used for the centre of the speakers.

We then cut a piece of cardboard out bigger than the circle, cut a small circle out of it, and covered it with foil. We use tape on the back to anchor the foil in place, and especially to reinforce the cut-out area.

After that we used duct tape to tape the black squares onto the back of the foil squares, and the foil squares on to the inside of the box to make a speaker front. We then filled the box with goodies and scrunched up newspaper (to keep the goodies from all gathering in one spot in the box) and secured it with duct tape. Nicolas then spray-painted the rest of the box. Each side took two coats, and he had to do a couple sides at a time so they could dry.

While the pinata was drying, Nicolas made the buttons from the leftover speaker circles as well as by cutting out rectangles. He and his sister painted these red with tempera paint.

 Amanda also decided this would be a good time to get a belly-button ring.

The pinata was a tremendous success. The boys were 10-14 years old and it took them about 10 minutes to whack it open. They certainly earned their prizes!