August 2023

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My little cousin & his wife asked if I could make a Dumbo piñata for their soon to be 3yr old boy.

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Honestly, I wasn't sure I would be able to make it. I had no clue how to design it. So I looked at a lot of Dumbo related content online, trying to get inspiration.

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Took me a month to figure out what I was gonna do. Kinda. It was more like, I got vibes, & began buying things to see what would stick. One thing lead to another.

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^ Saw this & I liked the style. Bright & very similar to what is in the Dumbo movie.

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Mind you, I was getting directions via my mom. She just told me they wanted "vintage," whatever that means. 🤷🏻‍♀️

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I would have preferred that they send me pics of the decorations they were buying/making for the party.

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I saw this #1 & even though it's for a one year old girl, it did help me to get closer to what I wanted.

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I like how its 3D, but flat. One of the issues we had, was that the piñata would have to be transported via plane with my mom. [My cousin lives across the country.]

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This is me studying Dumbo's shape & style.

Like, is his face a perfect circle or pear shaped, etc? How big are his ears compared to his head & body?

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One of the things I noticed is that his ears change colors & that his skin tone changes from blue-ish grey to a more khaki grey. Some folks straight out design Dumbo as light blue.

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Early on my mom steered me away from more cartoony/kawaii versions of Dumbo.

She just kept repeating "vintage." 🤷🏻‍♀️

So I decided to stick close to the traditional movie Dumbo as much as possible.

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Below you can see Dumbo's head with the large forehead & chubby cheeks. To give it a "3D" style, I cut the head 3 times & the nose shape 2 times. Those were stacked & glued together.

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Anyway, I had a LOT of ideas, but I landed on making a drum shaped piñata, with Dumbo popping out.

The drum itself was supposed to be more elaborate, like the red & gold carriages in the movie, but it got simplified. Especially after my mom made me make the drum smaller. Not to mention that I was running out of time.

I found these napkins that were perfect. Unfortunately, the pattern is only on one ¼ of the napkins, so I had to cut them all out & buy multiple packs.

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Prior to opening the napkins, I had been wondering what shape I would cut the paper. Would it be petal shaped, circles, or maybe fringe?

The fact that I had to cut these square out before I even did anything... basically decided it for me. I needed to prioritize what was important.

So I glued them carefully around the piñata, making sure to line up the stripes.

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I used regular Elmer's Glue (the glue school kids use) which I buy by the gallon. It's cheaper by the gallon.

Usually I just refill smaller glue bottles, this time I decided to paint the glue on. (I couldn't find my smaller glue bottles. My room is a mess.)

As to not be wasteful, I used the bottom of a soda bottle to hold the glue I was using. Whenever possible, I try to reuse items. It's free & good for the environment.

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^ That shiny plastic is also from a soda bottle. There's plastic on either side to protect the rope from ripping through & thus letting the piñata fall to the ground,  or worse... fly off & hit someone.

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^ If you look closely, you can see that Dumbo's face not only has pencil lines & staples, but what looks like a grey hue. Well... I had planned to paint Dumbo, originally,  but the paint was really thin & transparent. Thankfully, I had bought the paper you see there for decorating Dumbo or accenting his grey skin.

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As most things in life, when you need it, you can't find it. Well, usually every store is FULL of grey tissue paper. I'm not a fan of grey. Its one of those colors that's  nice in very particular situations. But this time, when I needed it, there was no grey paper anywhere. I would have to order it from online with no guarantee when it would arrive. [I've been having issues receiving things on time, don't know why. 🤷🏻‍♀️]

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That said, I did find silver & gold glitter tissue. Its very nice, unfortunately, it's lined with plastic or glue to keep that glitter together. I did not expect that. It made gluing it down harder. Also.... the creases on the paper did not come out, so cutting large shapes was not an option.

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Thus, I made fringe.

[Probably could have gone to buy spray paint, but it does take time to dry & I wasn't sure it would cover the staples & dents, etc.]

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Any shape I cut had to fit within the creases, so I was able to cut the shape of the nose & the bottom of the feet.

Btw, when you're gluing down tissue or paper... make sure you draw a grid first (guidelines). That way your layers are level & equally spaced.

If you look closely... you can see I didn't do that.

Anyway, glue your strips down in a straight line & then go back & cut the whole thing into shape. [Unless you're planning to wrap those fringe strips around the side & onto the back. In this case I knew Dumbo's face would be glued down & no one would see the back.🤷🏻‍♀️]

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As you can see below... I made Dumbo a booty.

Similar to Dumbo's head, I glued layers together. I probably should have made another circular shape to make the booty stand out more.

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Dumbo's ears & head were cut from one large piece.

Also, I did not have black paper for his eyes, eyelashes, mouth, & tail, so I colored paper with a permanent marker carefully. I made sure my strokes were in the same neat direction.

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I'm not a fan of the glue gun. It's hot, there's little threads everywhere, it's harder to control, you gotta be fast & accurate, & sometimes it accidently melts things, it cools down too quickly, the glue strength isn't always that strong, can unglued itself in a hot car, etc etc.

All that to say, that yes, I did break down & glued some of the fringe & bigger pieces down with a glue gun.

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Dumbo's red collar is made from a giftbag I already had. The shiny blue comes from a leftover piece of paper I had from another project 27yrs ago, lol.

The blue behind Dumbo is blue poster paper cut into a circle. There is one blue circle in the front & one in the back of the piñata.

The gold details are cut from gold bulletin border paper. [Its back to school season, so there are many options for teachers available for cheap.]

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Last minute, we added the pink details using pink construction paper, because my mom kept mentioning that there wasn't enough contrast between Dumbo's head & his ears.

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The yellow hat is also made from construction paper. I went back & forth with the hat. I wasn't sure if I liked the paper or the size. Considered making it smaller or out of gold paper. I also considered giving Dumbo a Mickey Hat or crown, or just adding mouse ears to the yellow hat or crown.

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In the hat is a print-out of Timothy Q Mouse.

To keep him rigid, I glued him to a piece of poster paper. Because we didn't know the size of the hat at the time or his placement, my mom made him in different sizes & facing left & right.

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With so little time, this is how Dumbo's booty stayed. I told my mom to ask them if they wanted to add a message of anything.

My mom's flight was the next day, but the party wasn't for another 2 weeks. So besides sending her with some options, like Dumbo's black feather & letter stickers, I told them I would mail them anything overnight.

Some of the ideas I had besides the black feather & "Happy Birthday", was to have one of the images of Timothy Q Mouse, balloons, popcorn, peanuts, a sting of flags. Or even just the name DUMBO. 🤷🏻‍♀️

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Even though the party is still a few days away, they have already begun to decorate.

Seeing it come together, I'm glad I made Dumbo the way I did. He fits in perfectly.

So glad they love him.

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🎪 🐘 Let me know what you think. 🐘 🎪