personal pinatas

i made mini personal pinatas last weekend! i am the lead on a birthday brainstorm and thought pinatas were the perfect way to kickoff the first meeting. plus this is a great indoor craft activity for kids. i made a mini pinata for each person on the team plus Alex made one for herself. i blew up balloons to a smaller size then covered them with paper mache newspaper (there's different ways to do that, but i used white glue and water to make my paste and dipped in strips of newspaper) leaving a small hole around the knot of the balloon. Let them dry - you could tie them up to hang, but i just let them sit on some craft cups we have and the extra water/glue dripped down into the cups. once the paper mache is dry you can pop the balloons and pull them out. fill with desired candy - i did rolos, jolly ranchers, and starbust. then there's different ways to seal up the hole, but all i did was duct tape it shut. i did tape on a twine string, but that turned out to not hold up very well. i then cut strips of tissue paper, cut fringes and then glued around the pinatas in a spiral until they were covered. since these were mini pinatas there were no bats required, just smash or punch or throw on the ground to break open! super fun and easy.