Pink Birdy Pinata

In between the business of life, I have had a number of embroidery orders and a couple of custom orders. I thought I would share with you the adorable pinata I made for a little girls birthday party. Her Mom wanted to match the little bird on the invitations that had been sent. Pink and green were the chosen colors.
   I first took the graphic and put it under an opaque projector  and projected it on the wall, magnifying it until I thought it was big enough. I traced around the projected image onto poster board, then cut that image out and again traced another one on a different sheet of poster board. Next I cut and taped two strips of poster board together to make the center of the pinata. I then measured a half inch on both sides of this piece, and took the scissors and slashed the edges every half inch all the way down both sides of this strip. Then the process was to cut a gazillion pieces of masking tape. (you place these around the edge of your work space, so it will be an easier go of it when you begin to tape items together) I maneuvered the cardboard strip all round the edges of the bird shapes, folding in the slashed edge of the strip. It also helped to score the edges,with a bone used for scrap booking, to make it easier to fold the cardboard. As I maneuvered the cardboard I taped the slashed edges on the inside, and the outside with the small pieces of masking tape. It was a real challenge to do the second peice, but I seemed to have managed. Next I cut strips of white art paper and slashed those on both sides, and glued it over the outside masking tape, to help hide the dark color of the tape, and to reinforce the edges.

  Now the fun started! I cut pieces of pink tissue paper and glued them all over the outside of the bird. I really did not like how it looked, so I cut the complete bird shape out of the tissue paper four times and glued two to each side. This gave it a more finished look, but the small pieces added strength, so it all worked. After this, I cut many strips of pink crepe paper, doubling the length for as many pieces that I needed. I estimated the length of each piece, saved a little bit of time, but not much, because after I cut the crepe paper, I then hand gathered each piece, by hand sewing running stitches along the length of each piece! Then I made two wings in the same manner. Made two cloth cover eyes, gathered some feathers, and a gift wrap thing that I purchased at, I believe, Target. I just love how it came out.

I taught myself how to make those roses that are so popular at the moment, only I used the crepe paper instead. The roses and a few feathers I glued to the top of the birds head.