Over two years ago when I was planning our wedding I became pretty obsessed with these piñatas from Confetti System... a beautiful-hued piñata not in the shape of a donkey? Sign me up! Unfortunately, I wasn't about to spend $150 on something that was destined to be obliterated, so I figured out how to make my own. In the end I did not make a piñata for our wedding, but since then I have created several for other clients through my company spool + ink.
With M's first birthday party on the horizon, I felt the need to make a giant "number 1" piñata to commemorate the occasion. Below is my DIY Tutorial for this particular piñata, but once you figure out the method you can certainly make whatever shape your heart desires to destroy.
Materials:
- 2 large pieces of cardboard (amazon packages make great piñatas)
-scissors
-a ruler
-a pencil
-masking tape
-glue stick
-empty cereal boxes (I used 2 but you may need more)
-tissue paper in assorted colors
-hole punch
-jute/ heavy string for hanging
-optional: colorful duct tape
-optional: a large button, needle, thread and twine
Method:
1. Using a ruler, begin by drawing out the shape of the piñata on one piece of cardboard. Cut out with scissors (or an exacto knife if you can find yours), then trace onto second piece of cardboard and cut out.
2. Cut front and back panels off your cereal boxes and then cut in half lengthwise. Also save long sides of cereal boxes. Tape cereal box pieces to all sides of one of your cardboard "1's" with masking tape, making sure the printed side will be on the inside of the piñata. Using the long cereal box sides, cut out smaller pieces to fill in gaps. Line up the second "1" cutout to be the mirror image of the first and tape into place using extra tape on the bottom panels for reinforcement.
3. Flip bottom piece of cardboard up to align over top piece of cardboard and, starting from the bottom, tape cereal box pieces to top cardboard (Don't worry, it doesn't need to look good. You're going to cover this mess of cardboard and tape with tissue paper). Just be sure not to tape top flap closed.
4. Unwrap your tissue paper (Paper Source has the most gorgeous colors around) and unfold it only once. Measure out lines every one and a half inches or so and cut out without unfolding the tissue paper (You probably will only need to cut out 2 or 3 of these strips per color of tissue paper if you are using four colors. I just got a little overzealous with the measuring).
5. Unfold a few un-fringed strips and glue to bottom of piñata (applying the glue stick to the cardboard and not the tissue paper), as well as one strip to the bottom of all four sides.
6. Unfold remaining strips a bit and cut fringe approximately 2/3 of the way to the top of paper (leaving enough un-fringed surface area at the top to glue to piñata).
7. Apply glue stick to cardboard and attach first fringed strip so the bottom of the fringe is lined up with the bottom of the piñata. Continue gluing and wrapping strips of tissue around piñata so all four sides are covered. Keep adding new rows of strips, each a little higher than the last, until it's time to change to a new color of tissue paper (before you start applying tissue paper you may want to measure the height of your piñata and mark where each new color should begin).
8. Once you are finished with the sides of the base things get a bit trickier, and you will need to measure and cut smaller strips of fringe to glue onto areas like the top of the base. But don't worry. You can do it. And it doesn't have to look perfect.
9. To switch colors, glue on the first fringed-strip of a new color to hide the messiness of the last strip of the previous color. Perfection is overrated. See below.
10. For this piñata I used colorful duct tape on the top flap and top of the piñata sides, but I usually just glue fringe to the top flap and all the way up the sides, with the tissue folded over the top edge and glued to the inside.
11. Using a hole punch or a screw punch (or the point of your scissors) make a hole in the cardboard on either side of the piñata. Run whatever jute/cord/string you plan to use to hang the piñata through the holes.
12. If you want a fancy closing mechanism you can sew a button on the side, then using an 1/8" hole punch make a hole in the top flap. Pull some twine through the hole so that there is a loop on one end and a knot on the end sticking through the top flap. To close the flap simply pull the twine up through the hole so that the loop tightens around the button and wind the remaining twine around the button.
13. You're done! Now, fill your piñata with confetti and goodies and hang it from a tree or just use it as a decoration because you've realized it's far too pretty to demolish.
