Bulldozer Pinata-- a tutorial

My boy loves construction vehicles. Actually, he loves anything with an engine. 

But for his third birthday I showed him a picture and thus influenced him he happened to see a picture on Pinterest of a construction cake and wanted a construction themed party.

I was happy to oblige. 

Of course he needed a pinata. There was no way I was going to pay $20+ for something that was going to be obliterated in a few minutes, so I further investigated on Pinterest how to build my own construction pinata. I didn't really see what I wanted, but I got the gist of how to do it. 

So pardon the million pictures. This is how I did it. 

You know what the best part of this is? 

Instead of paying $20+ for a storebought pinta, I spent $2 on this.

Seriously.

I used my recyclables for this thing and it turned out amazingly.

THE MATERIALS

(This picture is not all inclusive, but it gives you an idea.)

What you need:

• Two large family-sized cereal boxes
• An oatmeal box
• One toilet paper roll
• Tape
• A full newspaper should be enough
• Scissors
• Flour
• Water
• A Powerade bottle (or something similar)
• Yellow crape paper 
• Black paint
• Silver scrapbook paper (or something similar)
• Elmer's glue

MY MODEL

My little guy had a toy bulldozer that I thought would be simple and chunky enough to duplicate.

It was perfect.

STEP ONE

a) Using the large sides of the first box, cut the sides of the bulldozer like so. 

b) Cut  a square from the second big box that will be the back of the dozer. Leave the top flap attached for easy attachment. Tape between your sides for the back.

c) Cut the skinny sides of the first box (you know, the side with the nutrition facts on it) and leave the top and bottom flaps attached. Tape it to the top with the flaps overlapping the back panel (see picture). 

There's no front panel like there is a back panel. The two skinny top pieces wrap down and around the front.

d) Use the big panel of the second box for the bottom. You'll probably have to cut it down to fit.

I left a top/bottom flap on this again, so it would stick out the front. It was very helpful for attaching the scoop, as you will see later.

The top flap of the back panel was taped on top of the bottom panel and made it nice and sturdy.

Here's what you have so far.

e) Carefully pop out the bottom of your oatmeal container. 

I had to stab a small hole in it to get it started, then it came out whole.

f) If you're using Quaker, it worked out perfectly for the size of the scoop to cut out the front logo area. You can discard that part. You just want the other 2/3 of the box for the scoop.

g) Put your scoop in the front of the dozer. I had to trace and cut out the oatmeal box contour to get it to fit into the dozer body. (see a couple pictures down to see what I mean). 

Since I left all the top/bottom tabs on, they kept the scoop in quite nicely.

note: Looking at my model, I liked the shape of the body when I made the front pieces touch (as you see in the below picture) to make the top taper.

h) Take the top and bottom of the oatmeal box and tape them into the scoop. Trim the access so it's flush with the scoop.  

Do you see a bulldozer yet?

 i) Use the scrapes to make a cab. I made the back part of the cab higher than the front to slope it.
I tapered the top to match the front of the dozer.

j) I had a top flap left over from the first box. It fit perfectly for the lip of the dozer. I even left the little cut out tab part because it looked like the teeth on the model scoop.

TA-DA!!!

STEP TWO

 For some strange reason, I have no pictures of the paper mache part. 

Oh well, it was boring anyways.

Well, I believe all you do is mix equal parts of flour and cold water and mix well. I used two layers to really get it to stay together, drying completely between layers. 

Come to find out, this part was kind of overkill for 3 year olds. They couldn't bust the sucker at the party.

However, if you have older kids and you want this thing to last, mache all you want. 

note: if I did this again, I would paint over the mache to hide the newspaper print.

STEP THREE

I also have no pictures of this. Why? I don't know.

While I had the mache out, I cut the bottom part off the Powerade bottle and paper mached it for tires. 

I took the dried tire off (I had to tear a slit to get it off and I put a strip of mache on to repair it.

note: if I had to do this again, I would have just made hubby drink 4 Powerades and just mache them all. Using just one as a mold was just wayyyyy too much work. Ain't nobody got time for that!

Mache the dried tires to the body.

STEP FOUR

Again, no pictures.

But it's easy. 

Paint the cab and the tires black. 

I painted the rims of the tires silver.

I used scrapbook paper for the cab windows.

That's it!

STEP FIVE

The fun part! And finally pictures!

a) Take a strip of crepe paper a little longer than the side of the dozer that your'e decorating.

Cut it almost all the way through in 1" increments (give or take) so you have a fringe. 

Use a tiny thread of Elmer's to glue the strips down. You don't want to soak the paper or it will melt. 

When I started on the new side, I just glued down the fringe to wrap around so it didn't stick out like Alfalfa hair.

Oh crap! I forgot about the exhaust pipe. Well, it's a toilet paper tube mached to the back of the cab.

I also cut a small hole down the tube to put in the candy, in case you were wondering how to load the puppy.

STEP FIVE

At the last minute, I decided to wrap some black crepe paper around the tires to make tracks. I really liked it. Plus, you can use all the extra as decorations for your party.

Well there you have it, folks. 

I hope I didn't confuse you and that you learned from my mistakes.

I swear, it's much easier than it looks. I had a blast, and so did the boy. 

Good luck!