Make Your Own Pinata -or- How to Save 24.99 at the Party Store

As I was brainstorming ideas on how to make a 4 year old birthday even more chaotic, I came up with the brilliant notion of a pinata. What else says party-palooza more than a room full of toddlers wielding a long stick? So, off I went in search of a pinata. At the party store, however, I was pleased to find that they had a child friendly pinatas where each child could pull on a string to open it, therefore bypassing the stick and 'you'll poke your eye out' scenarios that could ensue. Perfect...until I looked at the price tag. The cheapest one was 25 bucks. C'mon. I made one of these things in middle school, so there was no way my frugal heart was going to shell out that kind 0f cash for something that could break on the first pull. I left with a mission to make my own pinata. Here is what my husband came up with. Maybe you can use it for your next party.

1. Find a medium sized box. (We used a Zappos box... much to my husband's chagrin, we've got a bunch of those lying around)

2. Decorate it. We wrapped it up in some of our kids art work. You can use wrapping paper etc. Just make sure you can still open it.

3. Fill it up with something. We used these:

(You can find these for a deal at the Christmas Tree Shops and they look really cool falling out on the floor... but you can put anything in there.)

4. Use scotch tape to attach many strands of party ribbon to the opening of the box. The idea is that the kids will pull on the strings, one at a time, and when the last one it pulled, the fun stuff falls out. (Depending on how heavy the stuff is inside, it might fall sooner, thereby adding an element of surprise.)

5.. Poke a hole in the top (not the flap side) of the box. Tie a long rope/twine on a pencil, put the pencil through the hole, and now you should be able to hang the box securely from the rope that comes out of the box. We tied it on a long mop handle.

6. Enjoy! Here's the the finished product. How festive is that?