October 2016 –
A group of expats in our neighborhood banded together to create a fun Halloween event for a bunch of kids. I volunteered to make pinatas for the kids to bash. 🙂 I do LOVE a fun arts and crafts project!
With only balloons, newspaper, flour (to create the glue), water, some salt, and paint you can make something that is squealing fun!
And let's not forget the CANDY!!!
I'm very grateful to the neighborhood families who donated candy for the piñata event. We ended up with quite a surplus of candy! Enough to create special give-away bags for each child attending the Halloween event.
At this point the pinatas had about four coats of newspaper strips and hung up to dry thoroughly.
And now…what are they going to look like? Here's my pencil sketch for them:
Let's get started, shall we?
The parents were most amused by this piñata:
All lined up and ready for their destiny!
Eee!!! Time for the piñata bashing festivities to begin!
Five pinatas…sounds like a lot, right??? Well, check out how many kids attended this celebration:
LOTS of kids. And I wanted to make sure they all got at least one good swing at a piñata.
Our Irish friend and neighbor, Aaron, got very creative with piñata-remnants:
The musical participant crowd was numbered to only Ava, Anna and Lachlan….but they got one piñata all to themselves as they missed out on the big event (because they were at rehearsals for the school musical).
Lachlan having a go:
Anna's turn:
These pinatas far exceeded my expectations for strength. I'd hoped for them to last for one round each but instead the kids each got to whack at the piñata several times.
Comments
2 responses to “Special Halloween Pinatas”
Aaaaaah, I spot Frank and Moritz in one of the pictures… Unfortunately we had to leave early that night…
How do you make the flour-water-salt-glue?
We still miss you so much! Du fehlst hier! I hope you are doing well and settling in well!
Hope to see you soon in Asia, America or Austria!
So long,
Corinna
Hi Corinna! I miss you!
We’re missing China….a LOT. The girls keep asking if we can move back to Tianjin. They miss the hustle and bustle of the big city. The closest city to us is Chicago. We have a lot of towns around us that certainly puff themselves up and pretend like they’re a big city. HA!
Okay, I certainly don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade but I do get tired of hearing elitist attitudes among the people that were born here and have never gone anywhere in their lives and are rude to people who are from other parts of the world…or even other parts of the USA…or even from a neighboring village.
ANYWAY….the paper mache glue is super easy. It’s equal parts flour and water. Some sources say that adding salt helps reduce/eliminate mould issues but that isn’t a problem in these short lived pinatas. I mix up a small batch at a time and coat strips of newspaper one at a time. Sometimes I added a little extra water if I felt that the “glue” was a little too thick. Once the strip (about 3 -5 cm wide) is coat and I used my fingers to “squeegee” the strip so that it isn’t sopping wet with glue. Place the strips on the inflated latex balloon in one layer. I hang the balloons up and allow them to fully dry (I had a floor fan helping with this cause). Add the next layer of strips perpendicular to the previous layer (criss-cross pattern should make the overall structure stronger). After each single layer allow the piñata to dry thoroughly before adding the next layer. The more layers, the stronger the piñata!
🙂