This piñata turned out just as I intended…almost.
The Green Dragon is what I call a structural piñata, which means it is made of many different parts attached together. The head, belly, tail, haunches, arms, and feet were all separate pieces that were taped and papier mâchéd together. This was my most ambitious piñata up to that point, and I was happy with the way it turned out.
The belly and haunches were wrapped in newspaper and then papier mâchéd as one piece. This will be the candy compartment.
With a few more pieces attached, it’s starting to look like a dragon.
The papier mâché dragon sculpture is finished and ready to decorate.
The wings were framed using wire shirt hangers, and the wing membranes were cut from sheets of crepe paper. The eyes were painted ping pong balls. The hands were four-fingered claws shaped from wire shirt hangers, then wrapped in crepe paper and tipped with card stock talons.
The flame is colored tissue paper that was layered together and then simply stuffed into the mouth with no glue or tape holding it in place.
The piñata stick was wrapped in aluminum foil to look like a sword. I wasn’t able to smooth down the bumps, so the next time I made a piñata stick that looked like a sword I spray painted the blade silver instead. The hilt on this sword was two small paper plates spray painted gold, and the handle was wrapped in electrical tape with a red yarn tassel as a decoration.
I made one big mistake with this piñata – the candy compartment was in the belly, but the hanging hook was attached inside the head. One of the girls at the party – a 50 lb waif of a child – hit the piñata directly in the neck and decapitated the dragon. The candy compartment fell to the ground intact while the head remained hanging. Fortunately I was able to reattach the body using some stiff wire, and the battle continued until the dragon was properly slain. After this I always made sure that the hanging hooks were attached directly to the candy compartments.
That was not the last fearsome dragon to be vanquished in our backyard. Just three months later, a band of 6-year-old hobbits would take on none other than the mighty Smaug himself!