Indoor Birthday parties can get boring at times,so this time we thought it would be fun if the little ones could play some games to amuse themselves.When I asked Little Girl what game she wanted to play on her B'day she told me that she wanted a Piñata .The only Piñata I knew was the one where blindfolded kids try to break an animal shaped container full of chocolates.And when you stay in the second floor of an apartment that's next to impossible :).So I tried to explain to her that we cannot break it at home.But then she told me that you wouldn't have to break it and her favorite cartoon character Dora makes it for her friend Boots the monkey.So I sat with her and watched the episode to understand how the Pull string Piñata works and i loved the idea. We had 7 children within the age group of 1.5 - 5 years coming for the party and I felt that it would be fun.After googling a bit we started to make it with papier-mache.It was fun making it,a bit messy though :) And the look on the kids faces when the chocolates came tumbling down was priceless :)
Let's get started:
-Mix the flour and the water to make a nice smooth paste.
-Tear the Newspaper into strips about 1" wide roughly.
-Dip the strips of the paper one by one into the paste and when they are fully coated with the paste,drag the pieces between your index and middle finger to remove any excess paste.
-Now stick the paper strips to the baloon until the whole baloon is fully covered.Apply one more layer and let it dry.This might take some time,a day or two sometimes.You can speed up the process by using a hair dryer.But make sure you use the cold setting or a slightly warm setting.The warmest setting might really speed up the process,but sometimes it might make ur paper mache to crack...
-After the first layer is fully dried make another layer and repeat the process...If you feel that your pinata is strong you can stop adding extra layers,else add another layer.
-Now pop the baloon .Then you'll have to make four slits on the top of it,and put ribbons through them so that they can be hanged from somewhere.
-You'll have to make an opening at the bottom to put the candies inside.Something like the picture below,where you cut it on three sides of a rectangle,leaving one side to make it work like a flap.
-We had seven children coming,so I put six slits on around the bottom rectangular opening and one on the flap,so that it'll open the flap when pulled.
-On the six slits around the opening i just inserted ribbons,so that they would just come out when pulled out.
-The 7th ribbon was inserted into the flap and fastened tightly so that it would open the flap.
-The flap has to be kept in place,after it's fully loaded with goodies.So three small flaps were struck,one one each side of the rectangular opening and the flap was inserted into it.I used the flap from some cardboard boxes to do this.
-If you feel that flaps are not strong enough to hold the weight of the candies,you can use any kind of adhesive tape,but just make sure that it isn't stuck very strongly and would give away when pulled.
-Just make sure that all the ribbons are of the same length.
-You can decorate the pinata,however you want.Just make it very colorful.Since the birthday was pocoyo themed,we decided to make the pinata in blue.I had some decorations that was leftover from last year's party.Since I love recycling we happily decorated the pinata with them:)
-Many times in birthday parties all the children stand around the pinata ,each holding a ribbon.Then they pull it at the same time.But we had the children lined up and each had a chance to pull a ribbon.To make it more fun fill it with candies that look like gold coins,that's what we did.And the moment the chocolates spilled down the children started picking up the chocolates,each trying to pick more chocolates that the other.It was real fun :)
Note:
This works for Kids under 6.Kids above 6 spot the ribbon that will open the flap in no time :)
