Wednesday, September 18, 2013

DIY: The Lorax Piñata



pull string piñata

This year the kids wanted a Lorax themed birthday party. I could not find a Lorax piñata that was affordable, so I thought I'd make one. I really didn't want to do a paper mâché piñata. I wanted something a little less messy and little more straightforward. Some great references:

Alicia Policia: You may know her from the Tom Selleck birthday cake. This girl knows her piñatas. She provides very detailed photos on her pull string piñata. I'm all about The Muppets, pictures and details.

OhHappyDay!: Do I really have to say anything about this one. If you don't know, go explore her site now! So many great ideas! Once again details and pictures make a world of difference. 

The Lorax Piñata

Supply List


Crepe Paper
Great place to buy is your local 99 cent store. They sell 2 in a pack. 
3 packs of orange crepe paper (for the body - front & back)
1 pack of yellow (for the eyebrows & mustache)
1 pack of black (outline for the eyes)
1 pack of the green (grass) 

Cardboard, Masking Tape, Pencil, Sharpie, Box Cutter, Twine, Elmer's Glue
Cardboard for free! I usually go to my local grocery store and look for the large boxes. The larger boxes have a large, flat surface area to work with. If you cannot find the size you need, you may have combine boxes and reinforce them with tape and cardboard strips. 

Flowers 
The flowers are essentially small tissue paper pom poms. Here is a great tutorial if you do not know how to make them. Use any color tissue paper you want.  

Scissors, Ziploc bags, Movie
Mostly for prepping. I cut all my crepe paper ahead of time and stored them in gallon ziplock bags while watching Season 1 of Jericho. Why was this show canceled? 

Two makes everything better 
Having an extra pair of hands with prepping & gluing will make this process go faster. It's tedious & repetitive.

Only cost me $12 to make and took a week and a half to finish (mostly worked on it at night). Let's hope it works!

Update
After all that hard work, I couldn't bear to have it smashed. So I turned it into a pull string piñata. It worked out great! 

Some tips:

-Just make sure the candy door is low/wide enough to adjust the paper & pull string at the bottom of the piñata. I doubled up on the paper & tape to make sure it held the weight of the candy.

-Give yourself enough time to prep and work on the piñata. The size of the Lorax piñata I made stood 3ft. tall x 2ft. wide. Having an extra pair of hands will help the process go by faster.

-If you intend on hanging the piñata with candy in it, make sure it's not chocolate. Chocolate has a tendency to melt especially in the heat or if the piñata is in direct sunlight. At the party, it was only 76 degrees and the chocolate candy was all mushy. Save the chocolate for the goody bags.

-Reinforce the top portion/head if you plan on bashing your piñata. 



2 comments:

Whoami said...

Super cute! How did it work? I want to do the same thing for my daughter's birthday this year! Any extra tips?

Maria said...

Thanks! It worked out perfectly. Some extra tips: make sure the candy door is low enough to adjust/tape the paper at the bottom of the piñata. Give yourself enough time to prep and work on the piñata. The size of the piñata I made stood 3ft. tall x 2ft. wide. Having an extra pair of hands will help the process go by faster. If you intend on hanging the piñata with candy in it, make sure it's not chocolate. Chocolate has a tendency to melt especially in the heat or in direct sunlight. Save the chocolate candy for the goody bags. I hope this helps. Please send me a picture when you are done. I would love to see how it turns out! Thanks for looking :)