Piñatas all filled and ready to..... destroy!

Our piñatas are ready to receive a good whacking on Saturday.  It seems such a shame because we've spent quite a while on them  No loss of effort though because we tend to do so much artwork that loads of it ends up in the bin!

Before filling it with a selection of surprise goodies and some cut up coloured tissue paper, I carefully poked two holes in the top of each one with knitting and threaded through some string that I tied ready to hang them for their climactic demise.

I don't know how hubby watched me make a mess of the floor with cut up tissue paper and hollow piñatas, but that we did!!

The kids had a fab time filling them with the tissue paper!

Unfortunately that's where their involvement ended because I had to stuff them with their goodies.  We're just having a family party so it's just going to be them so they've got one each with a few little toys, bubbles blowers and sweets in them.  My next job was to close them up.  Yeah, yeah, in hind sight I'd have stuffed them and sealed them BEFORE painting them, but I have to admit that this was not a very well-planned project and I hadn't bought the goodies and the kids wanted to crack on with painting them.  

I had already traced the openings onto thin card and cut them out with tabs which I used for masking taping the circles over the opening.  Another layer of papier-mâché and they were all sealed up.

A last lick of paint and then my sister and I started at the bottom and stuck tissue paper on them a some cartoon painted eyes and mouths as finishing touches.

We had a great time and will definitely be doing it again, but I'll be a bit more well-prepared next time.....  I was just using up stuff I had in the house.  Next time I'll buy a selection of big balloons and long balloons so I can make a big fat body and legs.  I'll seal them before decorating them.  I won't paint them next time either - the paint cracks.  Instead, I will go out and buy some crêpe paper that I'll cut into strips and cut little 'tabs' in them so the entire strip can be wrapped around the papier-mâché.  I think I'll even make a 'trap door' in them too so I can fill the after they're decorated - the crêpe paper should conceal the flap nicely.