Hi! I have made 2 bumble bee piñatas and the same thing happened to both of them. With the first piñata I use the paper mâché method with the 1 part flour and 2 part water and dash of salt. I added 3 layers over the course of 3 days letting each layer dry before adding an another layer. I put the piñata outside each day to let it dry. When the piñata was hard I burst the balloon and a couple of hours later my piñata became soft in certain parts. I was thinking this happened bc of the Louisiana humidity. So I made another one with the same method but this time added all 3 layers at one time and I did not let the piñata dry outside. Again after about 6 hours parts of the piñata began to get soft. Do you think the humidity in the air is causing my piñata to soften. Please let me know what I can do different. I have time to make one more.
Answer from Piñata Boy
Instead of using 1 cup of flour to 2 cups of water, use 1 cup of flour to 1 cup of water, or even 1¼ cups of flour to 1 cup of water.
The flour is the cement that makes the walls of the piñata thick. The newspaper doesn’t really make the walls tougher, it’s just there to hold the flour cement in place. With a 1:2 flour-to-water ratio, you don’t have very much cement on the walls, and that’s why they’re so soft. If you increase the ratio to 1:1, or even thicker than that, you end up with more cement and thicker walls, so they hold their shape when the papier mâché dries.
When you make the flour and water mix really thick it gets harder to work with and soaks into the newspaper more slowly. I’d suggest making the mix as thick as you’re comfortable working with. Mine tend to be like pancake or waffle batter, or sometimes thicker.
Good luck!