How to make a DIY pull-string pinata

I will just keep milking this construction birthday party for all it's worth!

I ordered a bulldozer pinata from Amazon, and when it arrived it appeared to be one of those where you put candy in the top and then hit it with a baseball bat. We've done this before with varying success, usually the small children can't get it to open so an adult has to step in and give the final death blows, if you will, to get the candy out.

This particular pinata didn't even have a place to put candy in from the top, so I decided to make it a pull-string pinata, where the candy goes in a hatch at the bottom, and all the children can pull on strings simultaneously to make it open.


First, I cut a flap in the bottom of the pinata with scissors.

Then my children filled the pinata with cookies.




I taped the correct number of strings to the inside of the flap.




Then taped the flap closed.




My husband hung the pinata from our trellis on the deck.

When it was time, we assembled the children, handed each one a pail to collect their cookies with, and let 'er rip.



The cookies were free from a home and garden tour a few weeks ago, so I just popped them in the freezer until that morning. A small change from the traditional candy, but the kids just like anything falling from the sky!

Have you entered this week's giveaway yet? It's a book of your children's artwork by My Little Picasso, just click!

Jessica

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The backyard

This is for Linda, who keeps wanting to see pictures of the outside of the house.

Our backyard!

The double doors lead into the upstairs loft, with the three windows on the left being the nursery, the guest room on the right, and my husband's office above. Due to our location on a hill (front of house pictures coming later), the backyard is off of the bedroom floor, not our main living floor.

Plus with kids...

That was when I spray painted the sign in the library and the baby food jars to turn them into Mother's Day Vases. Funny story- my husband read the post about the vases and got really worried that he had missed Mother's Day! So sweet.

The next day we spray painted a few (three) nightstands in our big nightstand switcheroo.

We keep the lawn mower (a push mower) and play balls in this shed on the side. And before you ask, the week wacker has a detachable battery that is not housed with it so the kids don't play with it.

Have you entered this week's giveaway yet? It's a book of your children's artwork by My Little Picasso, just click!

Jessica

Thanks for stopping by! 

Please feel free to follow me with all those nifty buttons in the sidebar:)

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I link to these awesome parties:

Sunday: I Heart Naptime, Nifty Thrifty Things, It's Overflowing Monday: Delectable Home, C.R.A.F.T.  DIY Showoff, Between Naps on the Porch, Thrifty Decor Chick, Debbie Doo's, Home Stories A to Z, Evolution of Style Tuesday: Coastal Charm, Nest for Less, Tip Junkie, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Get Your Craft On, Kurtz Corner,  Centsational Girl , Primitive and Proper  Wednesday: Savvy Southern Style, Organize and Decorate,  Mommy Solutions, Power of Paint, Newlyweds Recipe Linky, Southern Lovely , Home Happy Home, Crafty Sasse Wednesday, Gingersnap Crafts, A Crafty Soiree  Thursday: The Shabby Creek Cottage, Made in a Day, House of Hepworths, the 36th Avenue,  Crafty, Scrappy, Happy, 52 Mantels Friday: Making Lemonade, Blissful and Domestic, One Artsy Mama, Serenity Now, Tatertots and Jello, The Shabby Nest, Thirty Handmade Days, Addicted 2 Decorating, Funky Junk Interiors, Financial Friday, Furniture Friday, At the Picket Fence, The Rooster and the Hen, Classy Clutter

Construction Machine Birthday Cake Tutorial

This cake was the star of our construction machine birthday party that we recently threw our son for his 3rd birthday. 

This cake took 4 days, but only because I wanted it to "work" with the slanted stripes inside that look like construction tape, so I wasn't taking any chances. You could probably do it over 2 days, since you need time to freeze the layers.

A pretty picture of the outside.

That was the easy part, decorating it with smashed Oreos as "dirt" and small construction machines that tied into the entire Construction Machine Birthday Party theme.

Now for the hard part, getting slanted layers. 

That's me proudly holding up the first slice.

Usually I'm all about making everythign from scratch, but I figured I was going to so much trouble with this cake that I wanted to be sure the texture would work.

Bake two (2) 2-layer cakes in 9 inch rounds. You will end up with 2 yellow rounds and 2 chocolate rounds.

Wrap each layer and put them in the freezer so they wil be easier to work with.

After they are frozen take them out and set them on your work surface. I would recommend a rotating cake stand, but I used a large platter and it worked fine.

Level your cakes if they are too domes on the top, mine were pretty flat so I skipped this step.

Place your long serrated knife (bread knife) about half an inch in fron the side of the cake. Angle the knife, about 45 degrees, and start cutting through the cake, turning and cutting until you get all the way around.

Now you can separate the two pieces.

You repeat this step except closer to the center of the cake. Once you do one of the rounds, you can take the inside pieces and set them upside-down on the other layers to use as a guide.

If I were being a perfectionist about it, I would "trace" a round bowl onto the top of the cakes so that they were perfect, but the frosting does a pretty good job binding them together.

Now alternate your pieces. So chocolate-yellow-chocolate for two cakes, and yellow-chocolate-yellow for two.

Wrap these "new" cakes individually in Saran and place them in the freezer again.

When they come out of the freezer (I waited a day, but it could probably be an hour or two), stack them on top of each other, alternating outside color. 

Make sure to frost in between the layers to make them stick together.

Now frost the top and sides of the cake.

After the crumb coat, which is just the first coat of frosting, I put the whole thing in the freezer to make it easier to work with on P-day (party-day).

                       

My lovely friend Jill got me cake stencils for my birthday, so I decided to try them out on this cake. DO NOT do that. Do not try something totally new and different for making the cake, a construction technique, new frosting, decorating AND stenciling. Bad idea. The first time the powdered sugar just went everywhere. 

I frosted over it.

The second time it worked, see how I'm holding the stencil taut? That's so it doesn't stick to the frosting.

I could pretend that was the end, but once it went into the fridge to stay cool the powdered sugar kind of disappeared. So that's why you won't really see the "Happy Birthday" on the final pictures:) Just keeping it real.

My daughter smashes the chocolate cookies (Trader Joe's Joe-Joe's or Oreos work well) inside a zip-top bag, with teh frosting container. At least this way I wasn't worried about her accidentally hurting the marble counters!

The finished product. This is where all my mommy-training was put to the test since my kids wanted to place the decorations. 

I let them.

See how the "3" is falling off a bit? I decided that Pinterest and the blogosphere weren't being served any better by me being a control freak about a cake.

Delicious and adorable! Just like my children!

I got the idea from Pinterest, thankfully there was a picture tutorial for a slanted stripe cake.

Have you entered this week's giveaway yet? It's a book of your children's artwork by My Little Picasso, just click!

Jessica

Thanks for stopping by! 

Please feel free to follow me with all those nifty buttons in the sidebar:)

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or RSS Feed

I link to these awesome parties:

Sunday: I Heart Naptime, Nifty Thrifty Things, It's Overflowing Monday: Delectable Home, C.R.A.F.T.  DIY Showoff, Between Naps on the Porch, Thrifty Decor Chick, Debbie Doo's, Home Stories A to Z, Evolution of Style Tuesday: Coastal Charm, Nest for Less, Tip Junkie, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Get Your Craft On, Kurtz Corner,  Centsational Girl , Primitive and Proper  Wednesday: Savvy Southern Style, Organize and Decorate,  Mommy Solutions, Power of Paint, Newlyweds Recipe Linky, Southern Lovely , Home Happy Home, Crafty Sasse Wednesday, Gingersnap Crafts, A Crafty Soiree  Thursday: The Shabby Creek Cottage, Made in a Day, House of Hepworths, the 36th Avenue,  Crafty, Scrappy, Happy, 52 Mantels Friday: Making Lemonade, Blissful and Domestic, One Artsy Mama, Serenity Now, Tatertots and Jello, The Shabby Nest, Thirty Handmade Days, Addicted 2 Decorating, Funky Junk Interiors, Financial Friday, Furniture Friday, At the Picket Fence, The Rooster and the Hen, Classy Clutter

The Pinterest Challenge by Young House Love, Bower Power, Centsational Girl and Ten June

My Little Picasso Giveaway

I can't tell you how excited I was when Alana contacted me about this product.

My Little Picasso will take your child's artwork, from the past year, month, (or even week!) and get rid of the household clutter by creating a beautifully bound book for your coffee table or bookshelf.  The books are made from the best quality paper and materials to highlight the work of your little artist.  You can even decide what goes on the cover! All books are custom made to each child, and in addition to artwork, we can include photos, report cards, letters from camp, etc. - anything you want to save forever but don't have the space for! We will also take care of everything, we can send you a box to send us the artwork, or pick it up personally. Then, it will be returned to you with the newest addition to your bookshelf.  It makes great birthday gifts for Parents and Grandparents.

The opportunities to create something beautiful are endless, whether it is just to make your home a little neater, or give a unique and customized gift to someone you love.

And I get to give a 20 page softcover book away to one of you. That's a $75 dollar value, huge! 

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Construction Truck Birthday Party

My son has a pretty clear love for machines. And the color orange. His new bedding goes with this, his nightstand, his clothes, pretty much everything. So when it came time to plan his birthday party, the theme was a no-brainer. He was pretty excited to see everything all laid out!

I found these amazing construction party printables from Delightful Prints on Etsy and ordered them in a heartbeat.

I bought a new paper cutter so I wouldn't go insane trying to cut them out, and I got busy hanging the welcome sign in our play area. You know, that area where my daughter drew on the wall, but I didn't yell because I've been trying to parent better? Yep. At least if the crayon hadn't come off it was orange so it would have matched!

I set up an adjustable height folding table with empty paint cans (I have some plans for those later), construction machine toys, and a row of construction hard hats for a party with the children's names already on them.

During the party children would wander over and decorate their hats with an assortment of stickers that I had laid out.

The pails to collect pinata cookies were there, as were the favors, which you might remember from my party inspiration post.

I set out a few construction-related puzzles and some Magna-Tiles for children to play with. These are my all time favorite toy, but their factory was flooded so they were super-duper expensive for a while. Who knew there was a black market for toys? Thankfully they are back to "normal" now.

As with every good party, food and drinks are key elements. So I laid out a buffet on our kitchen island.

Always lay out your platters ahead of time so that you know that it all fits and where things will go. otherwise you'll end up forgetting something and the next day you'll have to find an use for two giant jugs of salsa, just saying...

The penant birthday banner on the hood is from Pottery Barn Kids, and is from my mom. We also have a "girl" one to use for my daughter's birthday.

I served cheese quesadillas, chips, salsa, homemade guacamole, berries, lemonade sippers, and apple slices with peanut butter. Oh and champagne for the grown ups, because that's my kind of party.

I made a four-tiered construction machine cake with slanted stripes inside that looked like construction tape. The tutorial for a slanted stripe construction cake is here.

I had to put the cake in the fridge to keep it from melting, it was h-o-t that day!

Blowing out the candle.

Our friends all digging in to the cake.

The Bulldozer pinata.

That's me. I'm nursing the baby under a cover while standing in the kitchen overseeing things. Pretty sure I never did that with the other two, this third baby (who then slept through the rest of the party) is giving me really efficient mommy-skills.

As an aside- what did we do before using a nursing cover? Seriously, I think blankets would just fall right off me.

My younger sister wound up reading the Amelia Bedelia Under Construction  book that that were giving out as a favor to our kids and their friends. 

Over the next couple weeks I'll go into more detail about some parts of the party:

- Construction Machine Striped Cake Tutorial

- DIY Pull-string Pinata

- Knockoff Mason Jar Sippers

- Washi Tape Party Cups

Jessica

Thanks for stopping by! 

Please feel free to follow me with all those nifty buttons in the sidebar:)

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