Lucky Pinata!

I love a pinata! I find the store-bought ones are made of hard cardboard, they’re difficult to bust open, and they’re just no fun! If you have a few minutes a couple of days, they’re very simple to make and you’re left with a feeling of artistic accomplishment. For my son’s game-themed birthday this year, I decided to roll the dice and create this pinata.

By: Jodi

Materials Needed:

• newspaper
• white paper
• white paint
• black paint
• flour
• water
• salt
• takeaway chopsticks (12 pairs)
• string
• masking tape
• pencil/marker to outline dots

Tutorial:

1. First build the skeleton of your pinata. As I was creating a pair of dice, I formed my chopsticks into cubes, using masking take on the corners. Luckily, I’m a weirdo who saves things like takeaway chopsticks, so I had a bunch on hand. If you’re not, you can use straws, sticks, dowelling, or those wooden skewers that you can buy at the dollar store. I then attached the cubes to each other, staggered. This created a space where, upon completion of the pinata, the candy could travel into the other cube, creating two treat vessels.
2. The next step is to tear newspaper pages into strips, then mix together about 1 part water to 1 part flour (experiment with exact amounts to get a paste that is not too goopy, but not extremely runny). Mix it really well to get out all the lumps. Add salt to keep your papier mache from going mouldy.
3. Take a newspaper strip, dip it into the papier mache mix, pull it between your fingers to take off the excess mix, then fit it onto your dice frame. Leaving a space at the top of one die, I did this until everywhere else was covered except for the part that was sitting on the table. About 12 hours later, when everything was dry, I turned the dice over and covered the bottom of the frame. Make sure you check your pinata every so often as it is drying. This frame can be a bit delicate when we so you may have to reshape it as it tends to lean.
4. I have made the mistake before of covering pinatas with too many layers of newspaper, making it so thick it was impossible to crack open. So, just do one layer of newspaper, and then rip up some regular, white paper and cover it with a layer of that. I waited a day for the newspaper to dry before I did the white paper layer.
5. I then painted a white wash on the dice (just to get rid of the yellowy papier mache mix tinge) and, after giving it 1/2 day to dry completely, painted some dots on the dice. (Although I was informed after that I had not painted them in the correct spots. I feel like maybe I knew that opposite sides always had to add up to “7”, but that knowledge seems to be one of the many things that was pushed out by remembering school occasions, doctor’s appointments for 4, and quick recipes for healthy dinners).
6. Once it dries, throw your candy in the top (shaking it through to the other cube), hang it up, give the kids a bat, and stand back!!