Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Work in Progress - BB8 Pinata

If you've read the Nuffnang FBOTM write up, you would have noted that Aiden has requested the theme for his birthday to be Star Wars.

I am no big fan of Star Wars, but I certainly enjoyed The Force Awakens. I've only watched it once at the movies, but I am very lucky as Malaysia Airlines is showing the movie on their in-flight entertainment all throughout this month. Hence I've been using my time on the plane, observing the characters and their costumes. I'm planning to dress up as Rey, and I haven't even finalized my outfit yet!

On the other hand, what party would be complete without a pinata? Aiden wanted BB8 as the character for the pinata. I pondered on it for a few weeks, utterly lost about how I was going to 'make' the shape of a sphere... and it has to be a hollow sphere too!

As I sat thinking in my DIY room (aka the spare bedroom), my eyes landed on a pink lantern that I had bought eons ago. I probably bought the lantern some time ago to decorate a girl's birthday party, but it has been left unused since then. Perfect! I finally solved BB8's body!


To strengthen the lantern, I covered it with layers and layers of newspaper, using homemade glue - gam kanji! Aiden helped too!

To make cheap homemade glue, mix 4 tablespoons of tepung ubi kayu with 500ml of water, and heat it on your stove until it thickens. Make sure you keep stirring it to prevent lumps.

Next, BB8's head! I used a sphere shaped Styrofoam (available at most art shops) and cut it to half. The height wasn't really proportionate to the body, so I taped a Styrofoam plate underneath. Similarly, I covered it with layers of paper glued with gam kanji.

Half sphere Styrofoam and Styrofoam plate.

Filled the lantern with candy. We had to stop at quarter full, for fear that the lantern couldn't take the weight!

Next, I punched two holes through BB8's head. I tied strings to the lantern's existing hooks, and threaded it through the said holes. These strings will be used to tie BB8 up for some serious pinata whacking!

The assembled BB8 left in the garden to dry. Ignore the patchy grass, it was just freshly mowed that day.

That's as far as I have gone to date. Hubby tried spray painting it white, but it simply enhanced the horizontal lines of the lantern. Hence we dropped that idea. Therefore tomorrow I'll have to go hunting for white crepe paper to cover the body instead. I've also managed to find orange florescent paper, to be used to sketch BB8's circular shapes that decorate its body and head. Still need to think of something for it's black eye. And then hopefully it is done!

Here's hoping that the lantern is strong enough to sustain the weight of the candy! Wish me luck!

4 comments:

  1. You can use paper bowl for the eye..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a good idea! I also found a sphere shaped Styrofoam at the art shop recently. Will try it out, thanks ;)

      Delete
  2. if guna lantern tu....later how aiden gonna smack-break the body ... with all the wires and all?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The wire is actually not so kuat. Furthermore, the lantern is made from paper, so a few whacks from the very enthusiastic birthday boy and guests, will definitely break it apart.... I hope! ;)

      Delete

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