Giant Hydra Pinata

Inspire terror, delight, the high pitched keening of small children as they rassle for candy. I'm talking about the family pinata: endangered, hunted both for sustenance and for sport. Now you shall take it to the streets and create a pinata of your very own.

Last week, for the Instructables Halloween party, I created a man-sized pinata (or manata as I like to call it.) It was a lot of work, but was cheap to build, fun to make, and even more fun to break. This design is very durable and is meant to satisfy a large party of whackers.

Step 1 Chicken wire you looking at me like that?

To build this whole thing, you'll need:

• 3 yards of chicken wire (a 3' x 9' sheet in a gauge you can easily bend)
• 1 newspaper
• flour
• water
• glue
• a bus tub, bucket or deep tray
• wire snips
• needle nose pliers
• streamers
• tissue paper
• candy and prizes of all shapes and sizes
• rope for hoisting

The whole project is based around a chicken wire frame. Other materials could be substituted, but I felt this was appropriate for the hoard of candy the hydra was to be guarding. I started with the necks, rolling sheets of chicken wire around cardboard tubes, snipping the overlapping ends, and twisting the wire ends together.

Comments

[acaz93]

Curiosly , instructables don't allow the letter ñ (see?) (image from Wikipedia)

[hintss]

so what are %C3 and %B1 the escape codes for?

[acaz93]

it's the way several browsers represent the " ñ "

[ahmad2117]

i made a hydra pinata

but it was really really really really really really really really really fat

[annoyingfeatures]

 you put briefs in it??????

[nave]

hahahaha, its greek AND mexican!!!

[RaynoGernsback]

Oh man, that blows the last pinata I made out the water... It was for a freind's 19th party where my band were playing a set. In the middle, we call him out to swing at the Partysaurus Rex- a giant brontosaurus pinata about a metre and a half long. The only thing was the prizes- it was a 19th party, so we decided we'd fill it with adult fayre alongside the paper streamers: Cigarettes, Condoms, Lottery tickets, those weird individual vodka shots that come in luminous colours from dodgy off licences... it was sweet.

[DeLorean4905]

from the ad on the top of the home page, this totally looked like TROGDOR!!!!!! lol

[RFilyaw]

Instead of peasants, this one burninates ancient Greeks.

[Doctor What]

Thank you for the ible! I'm making a giraffe with this idea, for biology.

[bgugi]

the only way this could have been cooler is if when you knocked a head off, two would shoot out! but pretty cool nonetheless

[Mad Hatter]

I couldn't put all that work in something and then beat the snot out of it. I would've had to frame it.

[zachninme]

May I ask why the bosses were going at it with a sawsall?
I can partially understand this, I didn't expect the wire to break at a wooden pole -- but the blindfold seems a bit -- safe :P

Did someone get hit with the potato or something?

[bofthem]

The sawsall was mostly for fun. We wanted th pinata to withstand a lot of adult hitting while providing surprises and success for the wee ones. So the body was nigh on indestructible while the heads just flew apart. The potato became a starchy projectile at the able hands of our very own Christy Canida. It hit our good friend Pete square in the old eyebulb, with a nice bit of bleeding to boot. Remember, kids: no potatoes.

[zachninme]

Wow -- that's a bloody potato --oh and Pete's eye looks bad too ;-) Is Pete "in house" -- or was he a guest? Smart thinking -- very very clever. I bet you staged the prizes differently? More candy in the head, the prank goodies being in the body?

[bofthem]

Pete took the spud in stride. He works for another company in Squid Labs. Exactly. The body was where all the good stuff lived. We had some hats and socks in there, along with balls, balloons, candy, and underoos.

[zachninme]

Heh, good to know you didn't scare someone off on their first time ;-) This design really is great, it seems. 3 heads means 3 youngsters to "break" the pinata (Although I bet some got more than 1, or all three :P) Then there's the body for the adults...

[Honus]

Very cool! Both my boy's birthdays are in January and we're doing a party for both of them at the same time- this would be a huge hit!

[bofthem]

Pinatas are great fun, but really hard to hide from the kids. You'll have to hide the construction in a clever place, and find lots of excuses to not be seen for hours on end, and come back in a state of messy disarray. "Bye, kids. I'm just going to play rugby in an abandoned quarry for a while. See ya."

[noahw]

The "heavy items" that went into the pinata were potatoes that Matt and I bought at the grocery store. When your trying to be economical about buying candy to fill a giant hydra, chocolate doesn't have anything on potatoes pound for pound.