DIY Rainbow Pull-String Pinata

Mia requested a Care Bear pinata for her upcoming birthday party. While I had successfully made a Lightning McQueen pinata for Logan's most recent birthday party, so she felt she should get one, too. The car was pretty boxy, which lent itself well to using a cardboard box. It only seemed fair to make her a pinata (before hopefully retiring from making pinatas), and I planned to work with cardboard again. However, I didn't think I could pull off something with some much roundness for my second-ever home-made pinata. So, I convinced her that a rainbow was perfect, and thankfully, she agreed. We had already decided that rainbow colors would be used for our decor since Care Bears are hard to find. This pinata took about 3 hours total to make and it isn't something I would recommend for craft novices. It is a pull-string pinata, because after spending all that time, who wants to see her creation beaten to a pulp in mere seconds? I'm not completely crazy, after all. The best thing, besides that it looks exactly the way I want (unlike the kind that I would have had to order online), is that it cost me nothing but my time since I already had all of the supplies at home. After the party, I plan to hang it from a hook in a corner of Mia's room. Mama's on a roll planning the Care Bear party.

Materials:

• corrugated cardboard
• boxboard
• scissors
• X-acto knife
• masking tape
• crepe paper in rainbow colors
• glue stick
• string (I used bakers twine)
• light blue curling ribbon 
• Scotch tape
• paper trimmer (optional)
• pen/pencil
• push pin

Directions:

1. Find a large, flat piece of corrugated cardboard. Cut it in half. To start the arc shape, I traced the top edge of a frying pan on one piece of cardboard. Then, I free-handed the rest of the rainbow shape. I cut it out and then traced it onto the other piece of cardboard, and then cut that out, too. The base of my rainbow ended up being 13 1/2" in diameter.
2. Draw a vertical line to find the center of your arch. A ruler helps with this. Then, I decided that my rainbow would be 4 1/2" wide. I used a ruler to help make lines (for the straighter parts only; there was free-hand drawing involved with the curved sections) to divide it into sections for each color: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, so 6 altogether. I started at the bottom left and worked my way over to the center. Next, I cut out half of the inside arch (not the whole rainbow), flipped it over on top of the cardboard, and traced it to get the mirror image for the bottom line of my arc. Then, I cut out the second half of the inside arch. I now had a rainbow shape, which I traced onto my second piece of cardboard, and then cut out for a total of two complete rainbow shapes for the sides of the pinata. (Tip: It was easier to cut this if I used my scissors first on the straight sections and then cut into them with small pieces using whatever angle was handy. I just pulled away little bits at a time until I was finished rather than trying to cut it all out in one, long line.)
3. For the bases of the rainbow, I used a ruler to measure 2 cardboard squares measuring 4 1/2" x 4 1/2". I cut these out with scissors.
4. For the top and bottom arches of the pinata, I used boxboard (mostly cereal boxes, but there was some Barbie packaging involved since it was after Christmas and this was handy). I used my paper trimmer to measure strips that were 4 1/2" wide and then scored the boxboard with the trimmer. This gave me an easy line to follow with scissors. I think I needed a total of 3 boxes to get the amount I needed.
5. To assemble my rainbow, I started with my square bases. I used masking tape to adhere the bases to the cardboard arches -- 2 strips of tape per side on the outside and 3 strips of tape per side on the inside. I laid the arch flat on the table upright to make this easier. (Tip: Tear off several strips of tape prior to starting and have them near your work station. I just taped them along the edges of my table. My 3 year old helped by handing them to me one at a time.) You want each piece of tape to be folded horizontally so that about half of the tape is at the top and the other half is at the bottom of your cardboard seam. It doesn't have to be perfect, just sturdy enough to hold.
6. Next, I used my strips of boxboard to cover the top of the arch. Again, I used masking tape, both inside and outside. When I would get the the end of one strip, I would slightly overlap the next strip to the first and secure them with more tape. Working around curved sections required shorter pieces of tape. (Tip: Make sure that the inside of your boxes is facing the outside of your rainbow so that you don't have printing showing.)
7. I decorated the rainbow pinata with strips of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple crepe paper, all of which I had already, amazingly enough. (The red, yellow, green, and blue came in twin-packs from Dollar Tree. The purple was purchased at Target for her birthday party last year, and I have no clue about the orange, unfortunately.) I folded the crepe paper in half length-wise, cut strips, and used a glue stick to adhere them. I just started with red, and worked my way to the end, overlapped as needed. (Tip: As with the tape, it was easier to work around the curves using smaller lengths of crepe paper.) I did both sides like this as well as the top arch, which in retrospect, I could have made all red and saved myself some time. Oh, well. The inside (bottom) of the arch I did all with purple because I was tired by that point and wanted to be done. It looks just fine. (Tip: Do NOT use any other type of glue. It will be too wet, which will make your colors run and tear your crepe paper.)
8. To make the trap door, I cut away 3 sides from the underside of one of the bottom squares. The 3-sided flap is set in about 3/4" all the way around. Then, I used an X-acto blade to make slits in the bottom square, about 12 around the outside edges, and 6 in the center (on the flap). I cut lengths of light blue curling ribbon, inserted them into the slots, leaving an inch or so on the inside, and then carefully curled the rest. One length of ribbon was taped securely to the inside of the flap to actually open the pinata. All the rest are for show. I may have added extras to fill it in, but I don't remember now. On the other side of the rainbow, I added several more curled blue ribbons and just taped them on with Scotch tape.
9. For hanging, I poked 2 holes in the top, first with a push pin, and then I enlarged the holes with a pen. I struggled with getting my bakers twine in there and finally figured out a system that worked. I put the un-knotted bakers twine through the tops of each hole, pulled it through until it came out the bottom (luckily I could reach my hand all the way in), tied the ends together to make a secure knot (I had to knot it a few times to prevent it from slipping through the holes), and pulled it back through the top for a hanging loop.
10. The pinata only opens on the one side. Before the party, I will fill it with goodies and close it up, probably adding a little tape just so it stays closed long enough.

DIY Pull-String Lightning McQueen Pinata

This is the second in a series of posts about the crafts projects I made in preparation for Logan's 3rd birthday party, which had a Cars theme. I had seen an article in Disney FamilyFun magazine that showed great crafts to make with cardboard, including a castle-shaped pull-string pinata. ("Crazy for Cardboard," p. 55, March 2012) I took that thought and combined it with this basic plan for making a car from a cardboard box, and amazingly, I created a very cool pull-string pinata that looked like Lightning McQueen.

Materials for Basic Box Car:

• cardboard box (mine was 14.25" x 9.25" x 5.25")
• pencil
• scissors (or box cutting tool)
• tape (I used both clear packaging tape and masking tape)

Additional Materials for Lightning McQueen Pinata:

• acrylic paint (red, white, yellow, orange, turquoise)
• black Sharpie marker
• ruler
• Mod Podge
• clip art/printouts of decals, tires, etc.
• newspaper to protect work surface
• paint brushes (foam works well for Mod Podge and large areas to be painted)
• Styrofoam tray/s to hold paint/Mod Podge (plates or bowls also work)
• red curling ribbon
• clear tape
• pinata fillers (I used Cars themed toys and crayons and candy from Dollar Tree.)

Directions for Making Basic Box Car:

1. Flatten your box. Draw the basic shape on one of the long sides of the box. There are two sections you will cut out: the front (hood and going up the windshield) and the back end (with slant going up for the tail fin). Do NOT cut the front end of the car (short box side), top of car (which meets up with another long side), or the back of the car (other short side).

{After cutting out sections from both sides of car}

2.  Flip the box over and using a pencil, trace around the areas you have cut out to make the car shape. Repeat cut-out process from step 1.

3.  Once the top of your box car shape is formed and secure, cut a "trap door" into the bottom of the box. I just used the inside edge of one of the flap and then cut 3 sides to form a square shaped flap. Glue or tape one piece of curling ribbon to the trap door. Do NOT tape the bottom together yet.

{Close-up of "trap door"}

4. This next step is harder to explain. I folded, shaped (bending a bit at times when necessary), and taped as I went along starting with the tail fin, then the first side, the second side, the top center (where I had to overlap the box flaps somewhat to get them to fit for some reason) to form a 3-D car that looks like the diagram. Note: There was one section that didn't fit together (from where I had cut pieces out) so I had to cut a strip from the extra part of the box, tuck it under the rest of the box, and tape that into place.

{Starting the process of taping the box car together}

{Close-up of tail fin as it was taped together}

{Front view after being taped}

{Race car box all formed and taped!}

Directions for Decorating Lightning McQueen Pinata:

1. Paint the paint with red acrylic paint, leaving the area for the eyes blank. Allow paint to dry and apply additional coats as needed. (It took about 3-4 coats to get good coverage over some of the writing on the box.)

2.  Once the base coat of paint is dry. Work on the facial details. I used a pencil to draw the eyes and eyelids freehand. Then I traced a bottle cap twice for the eyeballs, after which I traced a button twice to make the pupils. I used white acrylic paint and turquoise acrylic paint to fill in the eyes. Once it was dry, I outlined them and filled in the pupils with black Sharpie marker. I added touches of white paint to the pupils and moved on to the mouth. Again, I drew it freehand with a pencil. I filled in with white paint for the "teeth" and once the paint was dry, outlined and filled in the rest with black Sharpie. The headlights I drew freehand, then I painted the side parts with yellow acrylic paint and the front with white acrylic paint. After that dried, I outlined with black Sharpie. The final detail (other than touching up paint as needed) was to draw the hood outline with the black Sharpie. Once this was all done, I felt like it really had the personality of Lightning McQueen and the rest was just details.

3.  For Lightning McQueen's tail end, I drew the tail lights and filled them in with orange and white acrylic paints, and then used the black Sharpie for outline work once the paint dried. To make the design on the back I used a pencil and a ruler. The line in the center is about 3 1/2", the ones on either side of it are about 3 1/4", and the outside ones are about 3". They are staggered in a sort of "V" formation. I drew over them 2-3 times to make them thicker and made triangular shapes on the tops and bottoms to give it more definition.

 4. Okay, I promise this is the icing on the cake, and truly not hard at all. The decals are what makes this pinata look finished, and I found everything online and adjusted sizes as needed in Microsoft Word before printing them. For tires, I printed 4 of this image and cut them out. Here is the Rust-eze logo I used for the hood. This is the Rust-eze logo for the tail fin. (It requires a little bit more intricate cutting out.) I used a this number 95 for the top of Lightning McQueen after enlarging it. I enlarged this this lightning bolt for one side of the car, printed it, and cut it out. For the other side of the car, I didn't want it to be backward, so I flipped it in Microsoft Word and printed it out. I knew the 95 would be backward, so I printed off another plain number 95 and cut it out. I had to cut out some of the extra yellow and orange background from the lightning bolt and paste it all together to make it look like the lightning bolt logo (not perfectly but close enough. I used Mod Podge to adhere all of these printouts and then applied extra Mod Podge over top of them all to ensure a good protective seal.

{Top view}

{Decorating is done, and it just needs to be made into a pinata.}

5. Punch holes on either side to allow a string for hanging. (Don't make the mistake I made of trying to do this after filling your pinata.) To make holes, I decided on placement and then pushed a push pin through, following that with a pencil to make the holes wider. Then I knotted one end of a length of curling ribbon, reached inside the box, threaded it through making sure that the knot caught on the inside, brought the ribbon around the outside, threaded it through the other hole, and then knotted it off on the inside of that hole.

6.  Now add your extra strings for the pinata. (These are not actually attached; only the one string from before is actually attached to the trap door, so only that one string can pull it open.) Make sure you have at least one or two strings per child (I think I made about 20) and cut them around 18-24 inches. Bundle several strings together and slip them into the box along the edge of the trap door so that an inch or so will be held inside -- just enough to keep them in place. I had to do this three or four times to get them all of my ribbon lengths in. Then, carefully close the trap door to make sure that all of the ribbons are inside.

7.  Fill the pinata and then seal the trap door well enough to hold the treats, but not so well that it won't get pulled open. I used clear packaging tape for this. You are now ready to hang the pinata and have some fun. (Brett hung this one from our swing set.)

Here is the pinata after it was opened. Everything went really fast, and I didn't get too many pictures. At least it was nice to know that after spending approximately 3 hours on this project, it wasn't going to get smashed with a bat. Logan loved his pinata, and now he has something that can "live" in his bedroom and remind him of his fun Cars party.