Pinata Time

If you're not terrified of messes (like Sue) and have never made a pinata before I highly suggest gathering up some newspaper, flour, water, and a balloon and giving it a try. Little Abe and I made one together last year around this same time so I guess you could call this our annual pinata making time. The process takes several steps but it's so inexpensive and tons of fun, especially sensory wise for little ones.

1.) Inflate a balloon. You can tie it to a hanger or string it up somewhere in your house. Ideally it needs to be hung somewhere.

2.) Cut some newspaper into strips. You probably want to keep the strips under 2 inches wide and about half the length of a full page of newspaper.

3.) Mix up some flour and water (a little goes a pretty long way). I do not ever measure but I think one part flour to two parts water is probably a safe ratio. It really doesn't matter that much if the paste is a bit thick or if it's a bit watery but you're ideally going for a pancake batter consistency, maybe a tiny bit thicker than that.

4.) Completely cover one strip at a time in paste. I always wipe excess paste off each piece of paper by placing the strip in between two fingers and running the excess off. You really just want both sides of the paper wet. Of course the little guy isn't quite as thorough in his paste application. Layer the balloon with one layer of overlapping strips. This isn't rocket science but if you let layers dry in between layering on more wet pasty paper you'll get a better result. Once your pinata has three or four layers of strips it should be pretty well set. You can put as many layers as you'd like overall though.

If you want to add shape to your pinata (other than a round balloon) you can tape crumpled up pieces of newspaper to the paper mached balloon once it has two layers of dried strips. Then just add two more layers over top of the shape you've created (let one dry before adding another). You can pop the balloon when you're all done and you should totally cut a hole in your creation, fill it with treats, hang it somewhere and break it open with a bat or stick. I know, all that work just to smash it to bits... it's tradition.

This marks one more thing off my weekend to-do list and it was fun. We're quite proud of our paper alligator.

Average daily spending for 2015: $18.04

No spend day 45 today.