Homemade Spider Pinata - Save Money and Make Your Own!

A friend has asked me to make a spider pinata for her son's birthday party in March. I have posted how I make pinatas before, but I thought this would be another opportunity to show you the steps so you can do them at home. Pinatas are so expensive in the stores and making them is easy (but they can be time consuming) and you can customize them to whatever theme you need!

Items Needed for This Pinata:

• Regular sized balloon
• Newspaper cut into long strips
• Flour and water (to make "glue")
• Bowl to mix flour and water together
• Black paint
• Strong paper or light weight cardboard (for legs)
• White card stock or regular paper
• Fishing string
• Popsicle sticks (3)
• Candy/Small toys to fill pinata
• Black Duct tape (three small pieces is all)

(you might also want to cover your work station with newspapers or scrap paper because it gets pretty messy as you can see from some of the pictures below)


Pictures of the process:

The strips of newspaper and the balloon.

Blow up the balloon and then set it in something that will hold it up while you work (I used a box this time).

Mix equal parts flour and water in a bowl. You want it a little thinner then pancake batter, but not too thin.

Put the newspaper strips in the bowl and then run your fingers down the paper to get all the excess "glue" off the paper.

Start putting the newspaper on the balloon.

Keep layering the paper until you have at least 4 layers. The more layers you have the stronger it will hold up. Make sure you leave some space around the tie of the balloon that is not covered with paper (this is where you will add candy and also cut the balloon when it is all dry).

It is a messy project! ;0)

My balloon is covered with many layers so now it is time to let it dry



I hang up the balloon (by the end where it is tied shut) with a clothes pin. I just hung it from the basketball hoop my husband put up in our back room. It will take a few days to dry completely.



I popped the end of the balloon with a pin (it just shrivels up inside the balloon and then it can fall out). I took some black craft paint and painted the outside of the pinata.

 

I painted a piece of heavy cardboard paper black on both sides (I will cut this up and use for the spiders legs).

I cut the painted cardboard into 8 strips (legs).

I took a tack and push a hole into the part of the pinata that I want to hang it by. I strung some fishing line into the "body" of the pinata.

If you hold the pinata up, the fishing string will fall and come down so you can easily grab it (thanks to hubby for helping me show this process and take pictures).

Now, I took three Popsicle sticks and tied the fishing string (the end that will be inside the pinata) to them.

I then add packaging tape to it to make sure it holds well. Then just let this go into the "body" of the pinata. The other end of the string is how you will hang it at the party.

For the legs, I bent one end which is where I will hot glue them to the pinata.

I bent the "leg strips" to make them look more like spider legs.

This is how I glued the legs to the body.

For the eyes, I just cut this shapre from white card stock and then colored in eyeballs with a black marker.

After I filled the pinata with candy, I covered the hole (butt of the spider) with black duct tape. I would recommend using lighter candy pieces and toys. Also, keep lifting up the pinata as you are adding candy to see how heavy it is.

 

Here is Mr. Spider all finished! I think he came out pretty cool and the kids will love him! I was thinking that if this was more geared for a girl, it would be cute to add a bow to the spider's head. I know this is a long process, but I think it is worth it. It saves you a lot of money and you can customize a pinata for any party! I would love to hear your thoughts!!!

7 Year Old's "Painting" Birthday Party Ideas

My daughter is turning 7 at the end of this month. She is such a "crafty" little girl and loves anything that has to do with being creative. So, we are going to have her party at our local pottery store. The kids can paint a piece of clay and then they will get fired. For her invitation, we had to come up with something "creative" so we saw a picture online and came up with this:

We went to Michaels and found the paint cans, brushes and easels.

The easels were a clearance score! I thought they would be cute place cards on the table with the girls' names on them.

We painted the wood paint brushes pink.

We dipped the ends of the paint brushes in the paint as well and let them dry.

My husband printed off these invites which look like paint swatches! It has the details of the party typed in each color. They read: "Purple, pink, orange and blue. Gabrielle wants to paint with you! It's Gabrielle's 7th birthday!" Then date, time, location, etc.



I added pink paper to the inside of each paint can.

We added M&M's to the paint can and then wrapped it up in tissue paper. We tied them up with a ribbon and added the brush and paint swatch to the outside! Cute!

Instead of a cake, I saw an idea once for cupcakes being paints. So, I had my husband cut out a painter's "pallet" out of wood and I painted it brown.





I then just made cupcakes and frosted them different "paint colors" and set them around the pallet! I think it turned out cute and it was so easy. Very easy to transport to the pottery place too!



This is how the easels turned out. I painted their names on them and hot glued little plastic flowers on them. These acted as their place markers at the pottery place.

I planned this party for 1.5 hours. I didn't know how long the girls would paint and I didn't want a lot of "extra" time because they couldn't really play in the pottery place. The girls painted for almost the entire time. We handed out some snacks and then cupcakes towards the end and Gabrielle was still opening presents when parents arrived to pick up! All in all it was a successful party and one that Gabrielle was happy with!