~ Handicraft - Angry Bird Pinatas ~

In celebration of Gladys' 5th birthday, I decided to make a pinata since we will be inviting friends to the chalet. There will be a lot of children and it will be a fun activity for all to play.

The idea came only 2 days before heading to the chalet and time is very limited! After googling online on how to make a pinata, I starting working through the nights...

Materials
• Balloon
• Newspaper (shredded into strips 1-2 inches long)
• Flour and Water (this will be used to make paper mache glue)
• Glue
• Scissors
• Acrylic Paint / Crepe Paper
• String

Instructions

1) Blow up your balloon to the size that you wanted. (You can choose a big or small balloon depending on your design/needs).

2) Place your balloon in a bowl so that it will not move around as you are sticking the paper on it.

3) Prepare lots of newspaper strips (about 1-2 inches long)

4) In another bowl/container, mix 1 part of flour and 2 parts of water together to make the paper mache glue.

5) Dip the newspaper strips one at a time into the glue mixture.

6) Use your fingers or the side of the bowl to remove the excess glue mixture off from the newspaper.

7) Apply the newspaper strip to the balloon.

8) Cover the balloon with one layer of newspaper, leaving a hole on the end uncovered. Let the balloon dry for a few hours or overnight, and then add another layer of paper mache.

9) Repeat this process until you have covered the balloon with at least three layers of paper.

*Note: Since this is my first attempt to make a pinata, I wasn't sure how many layers of paper to put. The more layers you add, the harder the pinata and it will be difficult for the children to smash it later on. As an experiment, I made one with 3 layers and the other with 4 layers.

10) Pop the balloon when the paper mache has dry up. Poke 2 holes at the top of the pinata. Run a string through the holes later on so that the pinata can be hang.

11) Decorate your Pinata! Basically you can decorate it with crepe paper by gluing strips of colourful crepe paper around the pinata.

I decided to make an Angry bird theme pinata and hence I did a rough sketch and painted my pinata with acrylic paints. Acrylic paints is recommended as it dries up faster and gives it a shiny, glossy look compared to the normal pastel paints.



I cut out the shapes for the eyesbrows, eyes, beak and tail from a paper and painted it. Then, they are glued to the pinata to give it a finishing touch.

Instead of one, I made 2 Angry bird pinatas following the same procedures.

Since it was meant to be a surprise, I stayed up after the children have slept to work on this project. After two sleepless nights of hard work, the Angry Bird Pinatas are born! It was my first attempt  making a pinata and I think I did a pretty good job! ^_^ With that, you can put the candies and stuffings into the pinatas and bring it to the party!