Joey's 5th Birthday Part 1...making of the Pinata

As requested I made a pinata for Joey's birthday party.  This time, I allowed enough time to get it dry between layers of newspapers instead of putting the wet mess every night in the bathroom with the heater light on as I had to do for Lilly earlier this year.

I did this pinata properly, adding the rope to hang it between the layers of paper.  p.s. I use newspaper and pva glue watered down to make the pinata over a big balloon and for the last layer, instead of the glue, I make a thick floury paste to coat the newspaper.  This makes it really hard, you can see the coating of flour in the pic above.  When its dried well, you cut a small opening and pop the balloon and do your best to remove the balloon bits.

Then add lollies, wrapped ones are best since they'll be heading for the ground!

This is a photo inside the pinata.  Then seal up the trap door with some more paper and glue and allow to dry.  Joey decorated his pinata with streamers and his sister made some cute signs to go on it, see pic below.

Here is the birthday boy in the park with his pinata.

He loved it!  I loved it, so colourful!

You are too cute Joe boy! I love yoU!

Time to smash it!

All the kids got a go of giving it a good whack with the soft baseball bat.

Joey got the final hit making a big hole in the side.

Scavenging for lollies!

These things cost next to nothing to make and are way better to smash up than the bought ones, they do take time to make though but well worth it.

Stay tuned for the party food segment and the awesome party game segment...

My Girl Turns 7

We had a beautiful party for Lilly on her Birthday this Anzac Day.

This is the gorgeous cake we made together.  Yep, front cover of one of the Women's Weekly Cake books, I love it every time I get that book off the shelf.

I could not get plain green wrapping paper with hours to spare so settled for this colourful spotty stuff, I am too fussy.  Lilly designed the tulip flowers on the fairy house with delicious sugared almonds in pastel colours and mini musk lollies.  I esp love the marshmallow toadstalls, they are so simple yet so cute.  This year I used packet cake mixes and I think I will be doing this again, too easy and they really are quite nice and hold together well for this sort of thing.

We also made a pinata!  It was the most awesome thing ever (except for the hot pink pig pinata Stephen and I made for Lilly's 2nd birthday).  Lilly and Joey helped me work on it all week prior to the party, adding layers of newspaper with PVA glue until the final coat where I used flour and water in a thick paste to really make it tough! 

This is the inside of the pinata just after we tipped in lollies, toys, glitter and sparkles. 

It was massive.  I got the biggest balloon you can buy from Spotlight and it ended up very big.  The kids painted it and Joey worked so hard glueing on strips of crepe paper to decorate it.  We decided it looked like a jelly fish, so it ended up a Rainbow Jellyfish Pinata!  It was so big, I had to wrap the rope around the whole thing to secure it.  A better way is to paper maiche the securing rope/twine into the layers as you go but with only the week to get it done- I had to cut corners!!  We dried it each night in the bathroom with the heater lights!

It took a bit of smashing!  But everyone got a go and then scrambled for the toys and lollies!

For something that costs roughly $5 if that, plus the filling which you would buy anyway with a store bought pinata - it is such a good idea to make your own.  For a crafty family we had a great time creating it and it ended up looking pretty cool and more intriguing to smash and bash since it wasn't  your average 'character themed' pinata!

For an extra special surprise treat, we booked a balloon twisting clown who did magic!

This is the Lady Beetle she made for my wrist- so cute.

...and she turned this lot of balloons into...

...this so cute monkey up a tree! 

She was very talented and kept the kids entertained for 2 hours with her magic show, tricks, magic cake cooking, juggling and balloon twisting.  The jokes were pretty good too, I had sore cheeks from laughing and smiling for 2 hours!  Thanks Miss Donna!

Happy Birthday beautiful Lilly xxx