Beautiful Bug Party Part 2

I had planned on posting some Christmas craft but I'm still finishing one thing off. I know it's three days too late but that's just the way somethings go.

So instead here is part 2 of Rainbow's Beautiful Bug Party. You can find part 1 here.

Though I hadn’t planned on throwing a party, the best bit for me was how involved Rainbow could be. It inspired her craft for weeks. We had great shopping expeditions hunting down bug lollies and other party supplies and all the goodies were kept in a party box for Rainbow to ‘study’. And if she hadn’t have fallen sick she would have love to have been more involved in the decorating of the party food. So here’s part two of the ‘Beautiful Bug Party’.
Entertainment
On stir up Sunday Rainbow’s pudding wish was “I wish for fireworks at my party.” (from “A Princess’ Secret Wish”). So before the cake we had sparklers. Rainbow was very excited. This ended quickly though with a fiery mishap.

A homemade string piñata.
1. I taped a 1.25L bottle to the cardboard wings.

I then papier mached on a few layers to give it strength. I also cut out the bottom of the bottle for the goodies to go in and fall out.
2. We then papier mached all over using torn pieces of tissue paper and a runny mix of flour and water. Simply dip in the tissue paper and place on the piñata. I had hoped to do this with Rainbow but she’s not very keen on getting her hands dirty so after about 5 pieces of papier mache she was finished. I tried painting on the glue then just placing the tissue paper on top but Rainbow still wasn’t returning!
3. I then made little slits about 2 cm up from the bottom, all of the way around using a Stanley knife. I threaded a piece of curling ribbon through each hole.
4. The base consisted of 3 layers of tissue paper cut into a circle about 1.5cm wider than the bottom of the bottle. The tissue paper was tied with two loops of curling ribbon (one loop from top to bottom, one from side to side)
5. One of the pull strings was then tied to the loops (inside the piñata). I then pulled the ‘winning pull string’ taut so that the tissue paper was covering the bottom. Then I used the papier mache mixture to paste the tissue paper onto the bottom of the bottle. I also pasted between the three layers at the edge.

I borrowed the cool idea from Filth Wizardry of hanging it above the slide so that the Bertie Beetles would rain down the slide when the bottom opened. The piñata was comical with some children letting go of their pulls strings before sliding down and others clutching their pulled strings as wonderful prizes. Despite this they were enthusiastically climbing back up the ladder to have another go and equally enthusiastically clambering to collect the chocolates.

I had organised a craft activity to make pet bugs but decided not to set it up. I did however take it to playgroup on Tuesday and they had lots of fun with it. Here is one of Rainbow’s bugs - his name is Spider Winks and he resides in the Christmas tree.

I premade the bodies out of two half egg cartons with a hanging string. I also prepared a box of wing things (paper patty tins, strips of card, and squares of fabric, netting, cellophane and tissue paper) and a box of leggy things (chopped up straws, pipe cleaners, wool, curling ribbon, and matchsticks). These were set up with tubs of glue, a tape dispenser and Rainbow’s smaller craft materials for decorating (buttons, dyed pasta, little bits of foil and cellophane …)

The party bags
These paper leaf baskets were inspired by the felt tulip basket at Four Crazy Kings. I'm hoping to make a tulip one one day for the dress up box. It'd be so sweet for a little flower fairy.
These lollypop butterflies are a free download. There is even a choice of words. I hate lollypops - terrible for teeth but couldn't resist these. Strangely I didn't have enough lollypops to put in Rainbow's basket.

The baskets were filled with some bug themed treats – a chocolate Bertie Beetle, witchitty grubs, sour worms, a texta with a roller and some stickers. I made some simple little bug books to go with the texta and stickers. The pages are 3 ¾” squares stapled together. The covers are 4” by 8” rectangles (4 to a scrap booking page). These are then just folded and glued onto the spine of the book to cover the staples. The babies each got one of the bug bibs that I showed you earlier.
The grandmas and aunties each got a collaged flower.
And the mother got lots of leftover lollies to snack on! Hee Hee

If you missed the first post you can find it here.