aragog pinata

for my tomboy's princess's harry potter birthday, we decided to make pinatas.
we were short on time since i was studying and going to school for the last few weeks before my 2 big tests.   so, not awe inspiring but we had fun all the same.   i mean, it's going to get beat to death so it doesn't need to be pretty.    no one in germany had ever been able to smack a pinata so it was a "big hit".

ok, basic pinata making needs - a beach ball or large balloon is easiest, (but in a pinch, a large bowl will do), flour and enough water to make a loose paste, and torn up newspapers, and some string or thin rope to tie it up with.   don't forget to put a rope inside the paper mache to tie the pinata up with.

we use a couple different techniques.  

 first dip the paper on one end and run it through the paste gently pulling it through your fingers to get rid of the extra paste, then place on the form.

after a layer or so of that. we either lay dry paper over the already wet layer or smooth some paste right on the former layer and then lay dry paper over that.

make sure your crossing yourself with paper and not running in all one direction.   try to get even layers and not thick in one spot and thin in another.   if your using bowls, you will need to do 4 or 5 layers so it's thick enough to stand on it's own.  if it's too thin, just throw it back on and put more on then let it dry.    it should pop off fairly easily.   if you use a flexible bowl, you can flex it a bit to get the form to pop off better.    

once you have both sides of the form done, and dry, and off the forms, you can stand them together and start papering them together.  i used string to tie it together so i could use it to hang it as well.    as you are connecting them, don't forget to put your candy in before it's sealed up.   also, keep in mind that it's a pinata and not a decoration, you want to be able to break it.   i made one for my mom's office party one time that they had to take a hammer to it.   oops.   that was evidently too many layers.

since we needed some foes to fight with our harry potter party, we figured aragog was nice and easy .   it's just a big round body with 8 legs.   we balled up some paper and attached it for the head and taped together some tp rolls for the legs.  we cut down the center and rolled them smaller and then used masking tape to keep them rolled and to attach them to each other and the body.   then we put a layer over that.

we used a quick layer of paint and called it a aragog.   the point was to swing your "wand" at the spider and call out a spell to take it out.   there you go - harry potter pinata!   super easy and super fun!   they might want to try arania exumai but i'm sure bombarda, protego, reducto,  incendio
and a dozen others will do the trick as well.