I am making a piñata for my 6 year old daughter. I used a large punch balloon. I want it to be pretty sturdy bc we have a lot of candy to put in it but not unbreakable for a 6 year old. I didn’t find your site until after I had already started. I was using a paste with 1 part flour 2 parts water. I did 2 layers like that and then did a 3rd layer with 1 to 1 ratio as I read on your site. I also left an opening at the top of the balloon that’s about 3 inches wide so I can put candy in and make a door after. I hope that doesn’t affect the strength of the piñata.
Answer from Piñata Boy
There are a lot of variables at play here that make it impossible for me to give you one “right” answer, but I can provide some guidance.
With a 1:2 flour to water ratio each layer will be a little weaker than it is with a 1:1 ratio, but I don’t know exactly how much weaker they are. As a first approximation, let’s say two layers of 1:2 are equal to one layer of 1:1 plus one layer of dry newspaper. Right now you’ve got one layer of 1:1 on top of that, so let’s say you effectively have the equivalent of two layers of papier mâché on a wrapped punch ball. A large punch ball usually requires more than two layers to hold its shape, but one thing you can do to prevent it from becoming too hard to break is lay down two more half-layers in a tic-tac-toe board pattern, leaving space between the strips. This helps strengthen the walls but still leaves weak spots for younger kids.
Leaving a hole at the top of a papier mâché piñata is usually not a good idea because the piñata is going to hang from the top, and having a hole there makes the hanging point weaker and more prone to tearing under the weight of the filled piñata. I usually place the hole somewhere well north of the equator, but not too close to the north pole. If your punch balloon is round you have no problem, since you can just rotate the undecorated piñata and choose a new spot to the be top. If there’s a clear top, I would recommend covering the top with papier mâché to strengthen it for hanging, and then cutting a hole somewhere else after the papier mâché is dry.
Good luck!
Can I make a pinatas with just a regular balloon? If so , do I have to wrap it in newspaper first or can I just put the layers of news paper? Also I am going to use glue instead of flour what’s the difference?
Yes, you can use a regular balloon. Ordinarily it’s perfectly fine to lay the papier mâché down directly onto the balloon without wrapping it in newspaper first, but if you’re using glue and water I recommend laying down one layer of wet newspaper strips first so that the glue doesn’t make the papier mâché strips stick to the balloon. If that happens then when you pop the balloon, it can collapse the papier mâché.
I have only used a glue and water papier mâché mixture a couple times, and the biggest difference it seemed to me was that glue and water dried “softer” than flour and water and required more layers. Since I’m used to using flour and water (because it’s cheaper), it was harder for me to gauge the actual toughness of the walls. The main reason I prefer flour and water is probably just that I’m more used to it. There’s nothing wrong with using glue and water for your papier mâché mixture.
Elmer’s Glue has a YouTube video showing how to make a piñata using a glue and water mixture. In the video they recommend applying five layers of papier mâché newspaper strips, but you’ll want to let it dry in between each layer and see how thick it’s getting before you go all the way to five. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIXu6O7B0Dk