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What You Need:

• Cardboard
• Tissue Paper
• Packing Tape
• Scissors
• Box Knife or Exacto Knife
• Elmer’s Glue
• Foil Balloon (optional)

Step 1:

Decide what shape you want, then cut 2 identical shapes out of cardboard. My daughter chose a heart shape so I used a poster board and folded it in half to draw half a heart shape, cut, and unfolded it for an even heart then traced it onto my cardboard. If you do not have cardboard big enough you can always tape pieces together to make it the size you want.

*Note: Using a box knife on cardboard gives much nicer, straighter cuts then scissors.

Step 2:

If you are using a foil balloon, cut it if needed to fit your shape. My Rapunzel Foil Balloon was really wrinkled from the mail, so I put a piece of fabric over it and ironed it. I used tacky glue to glue it on the cardboard, but regular white glue would work fine.

Step 3:

Cut a long strip of cardboard out. This will be used as the sides or width of your piñata. I cut mine out to be 4-inches wide. You will probably need a lot of strips tapes together to make it long enough to go around the sides of your piñata. Use your packing tape to tape the strips to the sides to connect your piñata together. I also added a small strip inside at the middle (shown below) using hot glue because last year I noticed it sunk it a little in the middle. Make sure to leave an flap for an opening you can flap open and close to add the candy!

*Note: Last year the piñata was too hard for my 3-year-old to break open, so this year I left some gaps between these strips and added weaker cereal box strips to those gaps later.

Step 4:

Time to start cutting the tissue paper! I made mine 3-inches wide. Fold the tissue paper in half lengthwise then width-wise, then width-wise again and cut 3-inch wide strips. It is good to stack together as many pieces of tissue paper your scissors can handle to save time cutting. (My mom is a teacher so had this paper cutter, but scissors work fine!) Then, cut your fringe about a half-inch apart. Cut as much as you think it needed, I actually cut way too much!

Step 5:

Unfold them and glue them on with your Elmer’s glue. This is the part that took the most time for me. Gluing these little fringe strips on take longer than I imagined. Depending on which way you want them on, glue starting from either the bottom, or the outside first. Then glue the next strip just right above the last.

*Note: Make sure you glue fringe on your flap for the opening for candy, just don’t glue it shut.

Keep Gluing….

…And Gluing

Finally! Done gluing! My legs hurt from being in the same position so long. Don’t be like me, take a break if you need to.

Step 6:

Poke a hole at the top of your piñata for hanging. I used twine, just use something pretty heavy duty. 

*Optional- I added some glitter around where the balloon met the fringe using mod podge and spread it with a paint brush before sprinkling glitter on.I also added some long, thin strips of tissue paper to the bottom point of the heart with hot glue. I forgot to take a full picture of the piñata after this, and my daughter had a glow room at the place she celebrated so didn’t get a good picture before she broke it.

It took a long time but after going to the party store and Wal-mart and seeing their piñatas, it was worth it. Seriously, next time you see a store made piñata, look at it. It is like one layer of tissue paper wrapped over the piñata, then one long fringe piece going over the whole thing. Not tons of individual fringe pieces like this. It looks much better! You will be satisfied all your hard-work paid off. All to get destroyed with a baseball bat, but still worth it.