I want to make my sons birthday Piñata, but want it perfectly round. I am trying to figure out where I would find the straight pipe punch ball ?
Answer from Piñata Boy
The short answer is that you just have to look around. I have not found a store that stocks them consistently. I’ve seen them at Party City and at Target, but when I’ve gone back, they had the punch ball balloons with the lip instead, and then sometime later they’ll have straight-pipe punch balls again. The ones with the lip tend to be more “deluxe,” so check dollar stores as well. The last place I bought mine was at Target. Sometimes the single packs of punch balls at a store have a lip but the four-pack of punch balls at the same store do not. And I have also seen four-packs of punch balls that have lips but blow up perfectly round — a punch ball with a straight pipe always blows up round, but some punch balls with lips blow up round and some don’t, so you may have to just buy some and try them to find out.
If you can’t find round punch ball balloons, you have a couple of options. You can blow up a regular punch ball and then gently wrap duct tape on it to make it rounder. It’s hard to make it perfectly round this way, but you can make it round enough that the decorating helps hide any egg shape to it. Another option is to look for a small inflatable beach ball. That will cost a little bit more, and it’s also harder to work with because you need to make a larger hole to remove the beach ball after you pop it, but beach balls come in a variety of sizes and are close to being perfectly round. (Some beach balls are noticeably flatter at the poles, but the forces involved in hanging the piñata will help round out the top and bottom anyway.)
Good luck!