Remember when we did our gender reveal volcano back in 2015 when I revealed to the girls that they were gonna have a baby brother? That was such a momentous day and up till now, they still recall it fondly and we would watch the video every now and then to see our volcano erupt blue bubbles again and again.
This time round with Baby #4, I reckon the siblings gender reveal should be a special occasion too and I wanted to make it not just memorable but exciting too. What better way than to celebrate the moment with a party piñata and let the kids smash it open to find out whether they are gonna have a Didi or Meimei? Since birthday parties are going to be rather quiet this year, this was a great chance for them to have some fun too, yippie!
What made it even more awesome was that the kids were involved in the making process which made them look forward to the reveal day too. In this Creativity 521 post, I'll be showing you how we made our DIY piñata from scratch using just cardboard, tape and crepe paper. If you don't know yet, scroll down to the bottom and watch our video to find out if we are having a baby brother or sister.
Materials we used:
1) Cardboard
2) Blue and pink crepe paper
3) Sticky tape, double sided tape, masking tape
4) Gold cardstock paper
5) Scissors
6) Pencil, ruler, eraser
7) Twine
To get started, draw the shape of a romper in the size you desire on the cardboard. I made it as large as possible while making sure that I had enough to make the second romper and long strips for the sides, which I will talk about later. Of course, feel free to change the shape into something you like, for instance a pacifier or milk bottle.
Once that is done, cut out the shape with a scissors, taking it slowly and carefully at the corners and bends.
Use the cutout as a template to trace another same sized romper on the cardboard.
Cut that out too and you know have two cute romper shapes!
Now, cut out long strips of cardboard around 2.5 to 3 inches in width, depending on how thick you want your piñata to be. These will form the sides.
Using sticky tape, start using the strips to wrap around one of the romper cutouts and stick them in place. The thicker the cardboard, the harder this is, so it will be better if your cardboard is not overly thick. You can use sticky tape both on the inside and outside to make the shape more sturdy.
Fold the strips with care at the turns to make sure they fit the romper neatly. Do this all around, leaving it open at the top of the piñata. Angel took charge of this and made sure our romper shape remained intact throughout.
Repeat for the second romper on the other side. This will get tricky towards the end as you have to insert your hand through the opening at the top in order to stick the tape down on the inside.
To make sure my piñata is strong and will be able to hold the contents (I decided to buy not just candies and chocolates but stationery like notebooks and pens as well), I used a coloured masking tape to double secure the top and bottom.
Now comes the second half - decorating the piñata! This is actually the more tiring part but it's worth it when you see the piñata completed in half blue and half pink. To begin, making sure the crepe paper stays layered, cut them as shown below. I left the height at approximately 2 inches and cut them into 1 cm-wide strips, making sure the top part stays joined and uncut. Repeat this as many times as you need.
Open up the layers one by one, doing it as meticulously as possible because the crepe paper tends to tear easily. Ariel did a great job at this although it took us a long time.
Now comes my job - cutting and sticking the crepe paper onto the piñata. I did this layer by layer starting at the sides and stuck the top part of the crepe paper in place using sticky tape. Make sure the layers overlap so that you will not be able to see the cardboard eventually. If needed, cut out big pieces of crepe paper to cover up before sticking the striped ones on top.
As expected, you will need quite a lot of sticky tape for this so it does help to have a helper who cuts fast! Haha. Asher was too happy to do this for me and was a great help.
For the edges, I used double sided tape instead of sticky tape so that they could be hidden underneath the crepe paper and not be visible.
Once half of the piñata is covered up in blue, proceed to do the other in pink! Yup, it starts all over again, haha. You can draw a line down the middle of the romper before you begin to make sure the halves are more or less equal.
Woohoo! Looking good, right? We are almost done!
To add a splash of gold, cut out two question marks from the cardstock paper and use double sided tape to stick them onto the front and back of the piñata. I loved this a lot and think it made a huge different to the final look.
Put in your contents before sealing up the top part, making sure that it does not open up easily so that no one can take a peek. Haha. Yup, I secretly went to get all the contents and put in extra care to hide them so that the kids wouldn't be able to know in advance. Before sealing, make sure you poke two holes, one on the left and the other on the right, at the top and insert your twine, knotting it to make sure it stays snugly in place. Now, you are all set to hang the piñata!
I was thinking of the best place for the kids to smash the piñata and we decided to head to the park, find an outdoor space which was deserted and had a tree of the right height for us to hang the piñata.
Yup, time to let the FUN begin! Neither the hubby nor the kids knew about the baby's gender up till this point so it was really exciting for them, and even for me, to wait for the big moment when the piñata fell and the contents could be seen.
I guess it's better to showcase the big reveal in a video and let you see how it all went! So here you go!
Do you like it? I am pretty sure this video will hold a special place in our hearts for many, many years to come - we have already re-watched it countless times- and I'm definitely gonna show it to our baby next time too.
Thankful for a supportive hubby and wonderful kids who make me even more excited about the arrival of our new baby. They have been awesome and it's because of them that I am feeling so positive and excited about this new journey that we are going to embark on soon.
Cheers to being a family of SIX in a few months' time, woohoo!
