Make a Pig
Video Instructions:
Instructions in English:
Pig piñatas are pretty easy to make – whenever I make piñata forms for kids to decorate at some event, I usually go with a pig. Your basic pig only requires one balloon, some toilet paper tubes,and some thin cardboard for ears. Then you can go as simple or as detailed as you like in the decorating. With the Gentleman Pigasus I pretty much went whole hog. heh. Here’s how I made my Pigasus piñatas.
I started with a regular 12” party balloon. I wrapped it in newspaper, then put on a couple layers of papiermâché.
Then I taped on four toilet paper tubes for legs, and a shorter tube for a snout. You can tape the toilet paper tubes on before you papiermâché the balloon, but when I made some pigs this way once the whole thing was less sturdy during construction and came out bumpier all around. If you’re decorating with snipped crepe paper those bumps will all be covered, but if you have the time to papiermâché the balloon first, then that’s the way I’d recommend doing it.
The legs might seem long and thin right now, but the decorating will thicken up the legs. The hooves will also break up the color on the legs, making them appear shorter.
After the snout and legs were strengthened with papiermâché, I cut a hole in the ham and installed the hanging hook. I closed up this hole before I decorated the piñata. I’ll have to cut another hole later to fill the piñata, but I wanted to be able to smoothly decorate over the entire body.
The ears were cut from thin cardboard and taped on. I’ll bend the ears over before applying the papiermâché to make them look more lifelike. Okay, more adorable. It’s pretty obvious I’m not going for lifelike here.
Masking tape holds the shaped ears in place for now. After I papiermâché over them I will cut the masking tape away.
The ears are done, but at this point I decided the snout looked too small. I cut a wider-diameter piece of cardboard tube from a wrapping paper roll and taped it on right over the thinner one, then covered it with papiermache.
The papiermâché work is done and I’m ready to decorate.
I painted the whole pig with a stain-blocking primer to cover the newsprint. This step isn’t necessary if you’re using crepe paper to decorate your pig, but I’ll be using paint and quilt batting. Quilt batting is a thin sheet of polyester that looks and feels like cotton.
I gave the pig a spotty undercoat with pink spray paint, then I’ll cover it with quilt batting. This part is easier than it looks, because you just spray on the adhesive, press the quilt batting in place, and cut it where it starts to overlap itself. The seams will be mostly hidden by the texture of the quilt batting and by a light dusting of spray paint after the quilt batting is on.
The insides of the ears are covered in white felt, glued in using Elmer’s glue.
The tail is a white pipe cleaner that I lightly spray painted pink using the same paint I used for the pig’s body. It is also not glued in, just stuck into a hole.
And I say old fellow, the Gentleman Pigasus came out very much the way I imagined it.