Have you ever done a pull pinata?

Answer from Piñata Boy

I’ve never made a pull-string type piñata, but if I were to do it this is what I would do.

• Start by making a pinata as usual, then before you start decorating cut a door flap in the bottom by cutting three sides of a square or rectangle. You want the door to be large enough that when it is pulled open it creates an opening big enough for all the candy to pour out. Sometimes when I’m cutting a filling hole in a piñata I cut a nonsymmetric four-sided figure, like a trapezoid, and make the short side the hinge. Cutting a hole like this would make the door easier to pull open.
• Punch holes or cut slits in the door and thread long strings or ribbons through the holes. ONE of the strings or ribbons should be firmly attached to the inside of the door. You can do this by taping it to the inside of the door, or better yet by tying it to a piece of cardboard and taping that securely to the inside of the door. (You really don’t want this string to come loose!) The best location to attach this string this is where a doorknob would normally go — near the side away from the hinge, and somewhere close to the middle of that side. For now use strings that are very long because you can always cut them shorter after the piñata is decorated.
• The rest of the strings don’t get attached to anything inside the piñata. They just sit there loose, so when they’re pulled they simply slide right out.
• If you want to know in advance when it’s going to open, make each of the strings unique in some way — each a different color, or with a different bead or decoration tied to the bottom, or something like that so that when a player grabs the “live wire” you’ll know the action is about to happen.
• Remember that the door still has to support the weight of the candy, so you’ll want something to hold it shut. There are many ways of doing this. If you haven’t decorated the piñata yet you can close the door and apply one more layer of papier mâché over the three cut sides so that there is a weak seal all the way around. Or tape the door shut with masking tape, using enough to keep the door shut but not so much that a good tug will pull it open. If you haven’t decorated yet you can even test this with and without candy. Or you can add three tabs to the piñata, one on each side of the door opening, and tuck the door behind the tabs to keep it closed. The tabs can be made by firmly taping pieces of cardboard onto the bottom of the piñata. If you make a trapezoidal door like I described earlier, it has less “solid wall” holding it shut so it might be more likely to come open from the weight of the candy. In this case you might want to add an extra tab on the long side to help hold it shut.
• Decorate over the door with all the strings coming out, and hide the holes and the door.

Then you’re ready to go. If the kids give the strings a good solid pull, one string should open the door and the others should each slide quickly and harmlessly out.

I can think of three things to be particularly careful of:

• The security of the door. You want to make sure it’s openable with one pull, but won’t come open on its own by the weight of the candy. If you create the door before decorating, you can test it to make sure it’ll work.
• Don’t let the strings become tangled inside the piñata. It’s tempting to push all the strings mostly inside the piñata to keep them out of the way while you finish decorating, but be careful that they don’t become tangled or knotted inside or any one of the dud strings can become entangled with the live wire and open the door.
• Be sure the pull strings are strong enough that the live wire won’t break if the door doesn’t open cleanly the first time. If you’re using ribbon you can braid a few strands together for each string to make sure they’re strong enough.

Good luck!