| Making a Hanging Hook | ||||||||
This is one of the most important parts of the whole piñata-making process. All the weight of your piñata will hang from one point, so you want to make sure that point doesn't tear through or your piñata will Humpty Dumpty and the fun will end. The hook must support the weight of the filled piñata and it must also be able to withstand a pounding with a stick. If you make a hanging hook like the ones shown here, even a direct hit on the hook itself won't drop your piñata. Make sure you install your hook in the compartment that holds the candy! If the hook is attached to the head of your piñata and the candy is in the feet, your piñata might break somewhere in between, leaving you with a hookless piñata and a piñataless hook. |
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The basic idea to making an effective hanging hook is to spread out the pulling force over a greater area. I do this by attaching the hanging hook to a cardboard shield, which also serves to help strengthen top of the piñata. I make my hanging hooks out of wire shirt hangers and pieces from cardboard boxes. If you don't have any wire shirt hangers, either take some shirts to the dry cleaner or keep an eye out on Craigslist -- people give them away for free all the time. Here are three examples of installing hanging hooks into piñatas. |
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| Heart Piñata. Since the Heart piñata is symmetrical and hangs straight down, the hanging hook goes in the center of the top. I knew this before starting the papier mâché, so I went ahead and installed the hook after wrapping the balloons in newspaper but before doing the first layer of papier mâché. | ||||||||
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Get a wire shirt hanger and cut it off at the shoulders. Get a piece of cardboard. Since the hook will be placed along the top of the heart, I used a long, thin piece of cardboard. |
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Bend the cardboard in the shape of the top of the heart, then stick the shirt hanger through the cardboard from underneath. (I straightened out the hook first using pliers.) |  |
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The cardboard was cut to be a little shorter than the hanger so the hanger would stick out on both ends. Using pliers, fold the tips of the hanger over the top of the bardboard. This keeps the two pieces together. (Sometimes I duct tape them as well.) |  |
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Set the hook on top of the heart and adjust the shape as necessary, then tape it in place and papier mâché over it. Also, bend the hanger into a loop. I didn't do that in these pictures, but I did it in the other examples, below. |  |
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| Tarantula piñata. In this case the piñata has an irregular shape, so I didn't know where to put the hanging hook until the papier mâché work was finished. I wanted the piñata to hang mostly horizontal but with a slight downward tilt at the front. To find the correct spot for the hanging point, I stuck a thin screwdriver into the piñata where I thought the hook should go and lifted it up. Through trial and error I found the spot where the hook should go in order for the piñata to hang the way I wanted it to. (Remember when you do this that the weight of the candy might change the center of gravity of the piñata!) Once I knew where the hook should go, I had to cut an opening in the side of the piñata and install the hook from the inside. | ||||||||
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Once again start with a shirt hanger cut off at the shoulders and a piece of cardboard. It really doesn't matter what shape the cardboard is, but in this case I cut a circle. Poke the hanger through the cardboard and use pliers to bend the extra length around to the top of the cardboard. |  |
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I cut an X in the piñata using a knife, then folded the flaps back to create an opening. Don't make your opening too close to where the hook will go, because this cut creates a weak point in the papier mâché, and you don't want your piñata hanging from a weak point. |  |
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I inserted the hook through the opening and poked it out through the tiny hanging hole that I had made earlier with the screwdriver. I usually duct tape the cardboard against the inside of the piñata to help hold it in place. I did that here, but I didn't take a picture of it. |  |
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I used pliers to curl the straight shirt hanger into a closed loop, then folded the flaps back down. Always make your hanging hook a closed loop! Never use an open-ended "upside-down J" kind of hook because beating on the piñata can cause the rope to slip off an open-ended hook. |
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| Lastly, I put a couple pieces of masking tape over the cuts to keep them closed. This is now a weak point in the piñata. You can either leave it that way and decorate right over the masking tape, or put down another layer or two of papier mâché to toughen it up a bit before decorating. Usually I'll put down one layer of papier mâché just to make sure it stays closed. |  |
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| Here's one last example, showing a few variations in the procedure. Once again I did the papier mâché first, and then installed the hook from the inside. (This is usually the case with my piñatas because most of them are not symmetrical.) | ||||||||
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This time I duct taped the hanger to the cardboard. I also formed the closed loop before inserting it. It is often easier to form the loop before putting it into the piñata. I'll need to make a slightly bigger hole to poke it through, but I can easily cover that in the decorating. |  |
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I cut an X in the piñata, folded three of the flaps back, and they all broke off completely, leaving a gaping hole. That's not a problem -- I'll just tape the pieces back on afterward and papier mâché over them. It'll end up a little bumpier than it would have been, but the decorating will hide it. |  |
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On the left you can see the cardboard lying against the inside of the piñata. I then put some duct tape across it to hold the cardboard in place. The duct tape prevents the hook from falling into the piñata if someone should push down on it from above. (I almost had that happen once, so now I tape it in.) |  |
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| Here's that big gaping hole, all patched over. First I stretched a couple pieces of masking tape across the opening from the inside so that the sticky side was facing out. Then I laid the pieces where they belonged and gave them a little additional masking tape support on the outside. Masking tape tears pretty easily on a piñata as long as you don't overdo it. This repair job left an extremely fragile section of piñata, so this time I put two layers of papier mâché over it. It's a little bumpy there, but almost any choice of decorating technique other than painting will hide it completely. |  |
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Don't forget that in the end, all your hard work hangs by that hook. Don't take it lightly. Find the right hanging spot -- if you're not sure, you can fill your piñata first to see what the weight distribution looks like. I always use a closed-loop hook with a cardboard shield behind it, installed from inside the piñata. Make sure the papier mâché surrounding the hook is strong enough to bear the weight of the loaded piñata. If you're making a thin-walled piñata for young children, make the top of the piñata thicker than the bottom because the kids won't be hitting it on the top and you don't want the hook to tear through. |
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