This was one of my earliest piñatas – I had only made the Ghost and Bat and two Heart piñatas before this.
This was a big step up from the ones that came before, and I learned a lot by making new mistakes.
The shark piñata was my one and only attempt to use a wire frame. It was harder to work with wire than I expected. Maybe I’m just not a very good wire artist, but the proportions of the finished shark weren’t what I hoped they would be.
The frame was wrapped in newspaper and covered with papier mâché. The mouth was covered with a piece of poster board. These are the only photos I took until the piñata was complete.
was going for a sleeker look, so I covered the shark in flat layers of white crepe paper instead of snipping and fluffing the crepe paper.
Don’t eat that hippie, you’ll get sick!
I wasn’t terribly happy with the result – in particular I didn’t think the dorsal fin and the tail looked very good. And although the photos don’t show it, I used different rolls of white crepe paper and you could see the different shades of white on the shark.
But all these little shortcomings didn’t deter the kids for a second…
…and once there was blood in the water it turned into a beating frenzy.
This party was before I made a new stick for every piñata – that poor shark is getting beaten up with a Barbie piñata stick.
Kerry delivers the fatal blow.
The kids had a great time killing the shark, but I never used a wire frame again. When I made my dolphin piñata, I used three balloons to form the body, and ended up with better shape and proportions.
I have also been careful ever since the shark to make sure that when I want a uniform color, all my crepe paper is the same shade, especially when it’s black or white.