As much as I’m not an advocate of distributing candy to children I cannot resist a good old fashioned Piñata.

A fun ritual I think for me to make and for the kids to destroy.

For Zeenah’s 4th birthday she had picked the perfect theme to design a Piñata for. I would actually dream about what the “Ladybug” Piñata would look like and couldn’t wait to start on it during the planning process.

Let me walk you through what I did for Zeenah’s Lady bug Piñata.

One of the most important things when making a homemade Piñata after the Paper Mache recipe is the base.
Sounds complicated?? Not really!!

The base consists of none other than a plain ‘ole regular balloon.

It’s not the balloon that makes the piñata it’s how you design it after wards that makes it fabulous.

The first thing I did was attach two balloons.

The large 3′ balloon was t make the body of the Lady bug and is the part to be popped after completion to add the candy into.

The other balloon was a regular 18″ latex balloon that I used as the head of the ladybug.
 

I used red balloons just for fun but the color really doesn’t matter because it’s all going to be covered anyway!!

The next step is the REEEEEELLy messy part.

The dipping of the news paper strips into the Paper Mache past and gluing on top of the balloons.

The important part is to make sure you leave an opening at the top in order to be able to fill the piñata with candy.

 
 
After you finish putting the first layer of newspaper strips is to leave it to dry before putting another layer. I always wait at least a day before putting the following layer.

I like to put 4-5 layers of Paper Mache strips to make sure that it’s strong enough.

The entire process usually takes me a 5 days between paper Mache strips and drying time.

Now the artistic part begins!!!

 

I bought red and black crepe paper to cover the body and head of my “ladybug”.

This was such a tedious and time consuming task because I insisted on making the crepe paper ruffled.

It would have been much easier to just glue it on without the extra designing but then again it’s me we’re talking about and I love making life difficult for myself!!

The body was covered in red crepe paper and I had covered the head in black.

I kept the balloons intact and decided to pop it at the end to make sure that the Paper Mache is completely dried and stable.

You also have to remember to make sure you keep the opening at the top of the piñata uncovered with crepe paper to be able to pop the balloon and fill with candy.

 
 
 

I used my 2″ round punch to make the spots of the lady bug by making circles out of black construction paper.
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

 

I then stuck the spots onto the body of my ladybug. The hardest part in this process was to glue the spots randomly. I’m such a uniform person that I found a few spots that were aligned with each other.

But towards the end I tended to stick some of the spots closer to each other jus to get the random look.

 

 
 
 
With regular white construction paper I cut out the outline of an eyeball and drew the pupil with a black marker.

I think this was the easiest part in the whole piñata project.

 
 
 

 
 
 
The final part of the piñata design was to stick the eyes onto the ladybug head.

I also made a little smile using white construction paper to make the lady bug look a little more friendly.

 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Using several black pipe cleaners I had made antennas for our little bugger.

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Drum roll please for my piñata masterpiece!!!
 

 

The final task is always left for my husband, I create but he’s in charge of implementing my visualization.

After filling the piñata with candy and turned out to be extremely heavy and I left him with the challenge.

This is what it looked like in our garden!!!

I made a mess in the process of Making Life Memorable and I enjoyed every minute of it!