It’s not a real Halloween party unless there’s a piñata. Your guests can enjoy having a go at a scary creature with a stick in hand. The best part is they’ll get rewarded with sweet treats for successfully whacking a spider or bat.
While it’s a good idea to have a piñata at your next Halloween party, choosing the right one or making one from scratch might not be as easy. For this reason, we’ve come up with a few ideas on how to turn a paper lantern into a Halloween piñata.
Whack-a-bat
Making a bat piñata is fairly easy and requires little effort. All you need is a, preferably black, paper lantern, black craft paint, silver paint or a marker, scissors, crepe or tissue paper, black cardboard, string and glue.
First, you need to seal the lantern’s base with tissue paper and add a few tassels for a tail if you want one. Thereafter, cut out a pair of wings and ears from the black cardboard and glue them onto your bat’s body. At this point you everything should be painted in black, especially the lantern if it’s another color. When every component is dry, draw your bat’s eyes and teeth on the piñata with the silver marker. Alternatively, and if you have, you can stick googly eyes on it.
Now you can fill the piñata up with various sweet treats such as candy or other little surprises, like charms, if it’s for kids. Attach a string to the body, seal the top section off and you’re good to go.
Whack-a-spider
Just like the bat, a spider piñata is really simple to put together. You will also need a black paper lantern, tissue paper, string, googly eyes, glue, and black craft pipe cleaners.
With his project, all you have to do is attach the black pipe cleaners inside the bottom part of the lantern so they stick out (four on each side) to form the spider’s legs. Then you need to seal the bottom section with tissue paper and glue the googly eyes in front. If you want your spider to look more realistic and hairy, cover the entire body and legs with fringed crepe paper and sprinkle on some glitter.
Fill the body with candy, attach the string and seal the top section with tissue paper. All that’s left now is to hang spidey up for his impending doom.
Whack-o’-lantern
The Jack-O’-Lantern piñata is probably the easiest of all to make at home. Its ingredients include a plain paper lantern to start with. The color doesn’t really matter, as you’ll cover it in fringed orange tissue paper. You’ll also require black and green craft paper, scissors, glue and string.
Start off by sealing the bottom section of the lantern so the treats won’t fall out. Then fringe the tissue paper into strips and glue it around the whole body of the lantern. To make this process easier, you can get fringe scissors. Use the black paper to cut a scary face and stick it on your whack o’ lantern.
To finish off, fill it up with treats and seal the top section with tissue paper and a few strips of green to replicate the top of a pumpkin.
There you have it, a fun-filled Halloween party doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. With a few paper lanterns and craft supplies that can be found in most homes, you can create décor and entertainment pieces on a budget.
