Foil and Tissue Paper Bunny Piñata

Make a DIY Easter bunny piñata from foil and tissue paper for a kids party or Easter celebration! 

For Bean’s 2nd birthday we celebrated with a bunny party, her absolute favourite thing at the moment! I thought I’d have a go at making a DIY bunny piñata using simply tin foil and tissue paper, so that it would be easy to model and light, yet strong. I love using tin foil in crafts because of the flexibility and the way it can become almost anything very easily!

 Instructions:

First I doubled a large square-ish piece of foil and then folded it to make a hollow oval shape (slightly wider at the top than the bottom to become the top of the head.) I left a hole to put the sweets and bouncy balls into, then covered the hole lightly with more foil, leaving just a small opening to be able to hold and reshape the piñata as the process developed.

Then I layered up strips of tissue paper around the tin foil shell, covering each strip in PVA (white) glue to make it stronger as it dried. I folded some rectangles of foil into two matching lengths, then rounded the ends and sides to create a pair of bunny ears. These were taped to the top of the head, then covered with more tissue paper, joining the pieces onto the main piece.

It was left to dry overnight and it became rock hard and very strong. It was then painted with two layers of white paint. It would have been quicker to simply use white tissue paper and even skip the painting stage, but I didn’t have any to hand and needed to do this quickly!

When it was dry I drew on eyes, nose, mouth and whiskers using Sharpie markers and it was finished! I forgot to thread some thick cord or ribbon through the top of the head before I applied the tissue paper layers, so we ended up putting it on a surface and holding it as they kiddies whacked it with a a wooden spoon. I was pleased that it didn’t break straight away when they played the game (they used a wooden spoon to take it in turns to whack it!), but it was easier to break open than a traditional paper mache piñata, which can take forever! They scrambled for the goodies inside when they fell to the floor and added them to their going-home treat bags.

What other piñata shape could you make from foil? It’s so forgiving and easy to shape, I think there are so many possibilities!

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