Pull string pinata

Pinatas used to scare the heck out of me.  As I have thought about this, I believe this deep fear comes from the fact that my birthday is in November, which meant that if I ever wanted one of these contraptions it would have to be indoors.  My parents allowed me a pinata one year, which was enjoyed in the confines of our basement.  Give a few 6 year olds a bat and a small space and it makes a great deal of sense why that was the end of that particular childhood dream. 
Fast foward about 25 years.  Not much has changed in the world of pinatas, but I did get this wonderful inspiration from a blog called Young House Love for a pull string pinata.  The pull string is perfect for 2 year olds because everyone can participate and it alleviates my fear of blindfolded toddlers toting plastic bats without much direction.  This was a fun little project and Julia did actually help a little bit with the paper mache, though mostly she was a big mess.  We filled the pinata with mini playdough, packs of pretzels and goldfish crackers, and boxed raisins (which again, is also great for 2 year olds, they don't mind the healthy treats). 

Click on the link for Young House Love for the full fledged tutorial.  She does such a good job with it, I won't waste time rewriting it all.  I mostly found that you have to just figure out what works in regard to tying it up and finishing off the enclosure for the candy. 

A few things that I learned from this project:

• It is a little bit anti-climactic for the 2 year olds.  They loved pulling the string and seeing the candy fall, but needed some encouragement to pick it up.  It was well worth the 5 second initial joy of pulling the string though! 
• When you buy the punch balloons, anticipate using the whole pack of 6.  A few balloons popped during the production of this craft and a few were confiscated by Julia. 
• Store bought pinatas are actually pretty expensive!  This entire project (including the treats inside, which was the primary cost) totaled about $15 and I didn't have to worry about party favors because the kids could take these treats home.
• And a random personal observation, when you get weekly preganancy updates on the size of your baby, a belly at 37 weeks is compared to a watermelon, but it's also pretty congruent with the size of this pinata.  This I learned during the production of this fish and seeing the photos of me side-by-side with it.