making a pinata

For Asia's birthday this year - we decided to make a pinata! It's quite easy to do yourself if you have the time & extra space. I am a planner - so we made it 2 weeks early.

What you need:

• large balloon (round is best) and a way to hang it
  
• newspaper strips
• flour + water mixed into glue paste in bowl
  
• colored tissue paper, cut into squares
  
• Elmer's glue + water for tissue glue
• paintbrush & cup
  
• rope
• some sort of bat
• candy/goodies to fill

I began with the first layer of newspaper strips (dipped in flour paste), making sure to cover the entire surface, except the hole at the top. It dried pretty quickly, but I left it overnight to make sure it was thoroughly dry. I later did a second layer, using a large bowl as my stand. I think if you do more than two layers, it can be hard for kids to break open. The final step was gluing tissue paper squares to cover the entire pinata. We chose to make a globe (since ASIA does cover most of the planet). To hang - we poked holes in the bottom to loop a rope thru. It was a great project to do with Asia too. The only thing I didn't think thru - was how 'hitting the world' would translate, and with all the effort - its almost too pretty to destroy.

I hope the kids enjoy busting it open this weekend!