paper bag owl pinata :: a tutorial

i cannot believe that today is the last day of may! i feel like i blinked and the entire month was gone. i am still planning to post some of our fun birthday celebration photos... soon, very, very soon!!

but first how about i share some of our party crafts with you? this one is my favorite - a quick and easy make-it-the-night-before-the-party pinata tutorial. esme and i actually did make this one the evening before the party!

here is what you will need ::

brown paper bags - 2 or 3

construction paper for the eyes and beek (white, black and yellow)

masking tape, and/or glue (we used both)

rope, string, or yarn to hang your pinata

and of course some sweet treats!

start by filling one of your bags with your pinata goodies.

cut off a long piece of your rope/yarn/string to hang your pinata. mine was approximately 5 feet in length. (always better to cut it too long rather than too short!) and i doubled mine up to make sure it was nice and strong. next i folded the top of the bag over 3 times sandwiching our rope-yarn in between. we used a little glue in between the folds and then lots of masking tape on top of the last fold to secure everything.

now it is time to decorate your owl! this is the super fun part and you can get pretty creative and make your owl's face anyway you like. here is how we did ours ::

to make the eyes we simple traced the inside of the masking tape roll on the black paper for pupils and the outside of the roll for the whites of his eyes. the beek is just a small triangle cut from the yellow paper. to make wings we cut ruffle-y feathers from one of our extra paper bags and glued them to the pinata in layers. glue your eyes and beek in place and you are done! look at that, you just made your very own pinata in probably less time than it took to write this tutorial. now sit back and enjoy your beautiful work. and don't forget to take a few photos of your feathered friend!

we hung our pinata from the playset and the littles used a piece of pvc pipe to break it open. (that is our little friend freya having her turn) it held up just fine and everyone had a couple turns before the candy fell out. we had lots of toddlers and preschoolers and a few grade school aged kids at our party. i think if you are making a paper bag pinata for older kids you could easily use two bags and it would work great. and you could make any little creature you wanted! just imagine the possibilities... also, you could paint the eyes and wings onto your bag or even use colorful markers before you filled it with goodies. or maybe add craft feathers and google eyes to your creation! 

if you make your own paper bag pinata please leave me a message so i can come check it out!

happy crafting, friends!

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